


Wolfstar x Titanic AU: Kings of the World

by simplysirius



Series: Kings of the World [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Feels, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Heavy Angst, M/M, Moony - Freeform, NaNoWriMo, Padfoot - Freeform, Pining, Prongs - Freeform, Relationship(s), Remus x Sirius, Shameless Smut, Slow Burn, Smut, Strangers to Lovers, Wolfstar AU, sirius x remus, wolfstar, wolfstar angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:00:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 57,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27355402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplysirius/pseuds/simplysirius
Summary: Sirius as Rose, Remus as Jack, Titanic as...Titanic. Kissing, drawing, pining, and feelings free of charge.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: Kings of the World [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1997878
Comments: 82
Kudos: 245





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me @simplysirius on Tumblr for early sneak peaks, fan art, and other fics! Feel free to send me requests!

When Sirius Black was a young boy, he often dreamed about what it would be like to grow up and live a life of his own. He thought he might be a pilot, soaring high over Germany on his way to be hailed as a grand war hero, or perhaps he’d be a railroad conductor, driving his own train and delivering goods up and down the English countryside. He learned very quickly that he would do neither of these things, but still, he held on to small tendrils of hope that someday when he was older, he would look around and smile, content with his perfect little life.

He’d own a house in the country, maybe, where he could smell the lemongrass and hear the crickets’ gentle lullaby. He’d have a dog, maybe even a cat, and eventually a child to pass it all down to. At night, he would kiss the lips of the person he loved, nestled in their arms, and fall asleep listening to the sound of their quiet breathing. It was so simple. So wonderful. So impossible.

Remus Lupin expected many things from his life. He’d be a world famous artist, his pieces proudly hung front and center in the Louvre or in the Victoria and Albert. He’d be an author with a dozen books sitting on the shelf, filled with the adventures of characters who were perfect imitations of him in all but his name. He’d be a father, teaching his son how to kick a football and his daughter how to punch all the ruffian boys who chased her. They were dreams that kept him up all night instead of helping him to sleep, his deepest desires dancing in the shadows of the candle that burned beside his bed.

When he woke up each morning, he didn’t have much, but he had what he needed: a roof over his head with minimal leaks, some food on his plate that was only mildly stale, and ample air in his lungs that might be choked by the smoke from his cigarette. He could be happy like this, if he tried, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want more. Just one thing, really. Someone to share it with. A muse to draw, to inspire his writings, to keep his bed warm at night. Someone to hold his heart with sure hands and never let go.

_April 10, 1912_

“It’s beautiful.”

“It should be, for what the tickets cost.”

“I don’t appreciate the tone, Sirius.”

Sirius Black was sure that he would die one of three ways. The first was the most plausible: suffocated by his mother’s insistent grip on the back of his neck, nails digging into tender skin, fingers aligning perfectly with the tattooed bruises that never had time to heal. When he was a child, it was the easiest way to silently chide him for acting out, for speaking out of turn, for daring to breathe too loudly. A death grip disguised as a gentle, reassuring gesture. Now, even at twenty-two, a whole head taller than his mother, Walburga still managed to keep a firm hold on his neck, reaching up with nimble fingers and callous eyes. 

If he wasn’t strangled by his mother, Sirius suspected he would die from the other woman in his life, whose kindness mirrored that of a coiled snake, and whose cunning could outwit even the foxes hiding in the underbrush of their country estate. His first meeting with Cordelia Slytherin was about as much of a disaster as he was expecting. It was a Renaissance painting, really; Sirius tucked away into the corner of the frame, eyes decidedly on the ground and arms crossed on his chest, staring wistfully out the window. His mother throwing an admonishing glare over her shoulder as she served Cordelia’s father another glass of whiskey. Cordelia, draped on the couch, her pale dress cascading daintily to the ground as she watched the scene unfold, wistful eyes on Sirius and the finest fabrics that adorned his body. Sirius imagined the caption underneath the painting would read something like _An Introduction to Arranged Marriages Under False Pretenses_ , or perhaps _The Sulking Heir to the Black Fortune and his Scheming Bride to Be._ Should he escape his mother’s grasp and survive until his fateful wedding, Sirius was sure Cordelia would off him within the first few years, right after she had a child or two and made sure she was the beneficiary to Sirius’ titles.

The third option for imminent death was ever-changing. When his family bought their first automobile, he was sure it was all an elaborate plot to stage his untimely demise. Later, after a rough bout with food poisoning, Sirius was left wondering if he should buy and cook his own meals. And now, sitting in a cab with posh leather seats and a driver dressed in the best coats that Southampton had to offer, Sirius stared out the window at the largest ship he had ever seen, and knew this was now the most obvious way to meet his maker.

The prospect was thrilling.

Of course, Sirius had looked through the magazines and newspapers raving about the ship and all its prowess, boasting about the exquisite menu and first class accommodations, but now, sitting in the car dwarfed ten times its size, even Sirius couldn’t help but give credit where credit was due.

Titanic was a monster of a ship, far larger than anything he had ever seen or dared to imagine, with four grand smoke stacks rising from the deck, painted a crisp black and yellow to match the looming hull. Its name was scrawled on the side with delicate brush strokes in small letters, allowing the sheer size of the boat to leave a lasting impression.

The dock was a flurry of activity, with passengers and crewmen alike scrambling around the boarding area, punching tickets and checking luggage, fending away unwanted pedestrians and scrutinizing every man and woman dressed in dirty garments who claimed they had a ticket to a new life.

It was a new life, Sirius supposed. The next time he set foot in England, he would be a married man, with a shiny gold ring around his finger to squeeze just a bit more vitality out of him. In an hour, Titanic would carry him to America, where Cordelia’s family prepared for the wedding to end all weddings. They would once again join households, the Blacks and the Slytherins, as they had done for generations, ensuring that their dynasty continued for years to come. With a knot growing in his stomach, Sirius wondered what would happen if he accidentally lost the ticket that was currently burning a hole in his blazer.

“I really can’t believe it,” Cordelia marveled, pressing her face as close to the window as possible without smudging her makeup. Her skin was ghostly pale, save for pink cheeks that were far too pigmented for Sirius’ liking. She pursed her lips, licking at the mauve gloss. “This is just grand. Do you think they’ll serve champagne?”

Sirius forced his eyes not to roll back into his head. “I’m sure they’ll have plenty of fine wines for you to choose from.”

“Look at all these people. Surely they don’t have the means to board this ship,” she added, as if Sirius had said nothing. Her eyes followed each pauper as the car made its way through the crowd, nose crinkled in quiet disgust.

“I’ve heard there’s excellent steerage quarters. Perhaps we should visit sometime,” Sirius suggested sarcastically.

“I’m not interested in attracting whatever kind of infestations they bring on board.”

“There’s an infestation, alright,” Sirius deadpanned.

Cordelia turned to look at him, brown eyes steeling a cold lashing. Sirius met her eye defiantly, unable to hide the smug smile tugging on his face. Staring was commonplace in their relationship, understanding all too well that contempt for each other was the one thing they shared.

Before either had the chance to back down, the driver brought the car to a halt and scrambled to open the door for Cordelia. She clasped his outstretched hand and stepped outside, adjusting the silk gloves that covered her fingers and the flowers that she had painstakingly arranged in her hair earlier that morning. Sirius waited for the driver to come around on his side, not so idiotic to need someone to open the door for him, but because he realized, with a start, that this was it. If he was going to run, he’d have to do it now, or he’d be swimming back to shore. His leg twitched, aching to sprint.

“Right this way, Sir,” the driver instructed all too soon, making the decision for Sirius as he offered his hand. Sirius didn’t take it. Instead, he heaved himself out of the seat, hands buried in his pockets, and rounded the car to get a real, unobstructed view of the ship.

He could smell the salt air, feel the electricity ripple through the crowd, and taste the sour twist of embarking on a life that would never truly belong to him.

“Excuse me, Sir, if I may,” the driver asked, gesturing to the suitcases piled on the back rack of the automobile. Sirius stepped aside, watching the man, much older than he initially thought, with a brilliant white swath of hair, struggle with the first of many luggage bags Cordelia insisted on bringing. The jacket stitching on the driver’s left arm was beginning to fray, and it took Sirius no time at all to realize that the driver was not a rich man after all, but just another peasant brushing elbows with the wealthy to get the taste of a noble life before he died without consequence.

“Thank you very much for your help,” Sirius said, holding one hand out. The driver accepted it, eyes wide when he saw the twenty pound note in his palm. “I apologize for the excessive baggage.”

“It’s not excessive,” Cordelia dismissed. She looped her hand around Sirius’ arm, a gesture that would seem kind if not for how hard she squeezed. “Let’s not forget who just _had_ to bring their art collection.” Sirius huffed.

Behind them, an identical car parked, and the driver hurriedly opened the doors for its passengers. Sirius silently told the man to stand back and straighten his shoulders, but, most unfortunately, he was not telepathic.

“Step back you fool, I can hardly move,” a shrill voice cried from inside the car. The driver stumbled backwards. An ornate fan reached out and smacked his shoulders. “And stand straight, this isn’t a trip to the grocer.”

Walburga Black waltzed out of the car, her wide-brimmed hat almost not fitting through the opening. She wore a deep green overcoat, her onyx hair pinned in thick curls around the brim of her angular hat. Sirius thought it made her look like a Puritan. Her lips were a deep maroon, bordering on the edge of purple and almost certainly the color of Sirius’ neck after a particularly stern lecture. Her eyes swept up and down the Titanic with a hypercritical fervor before a thin smile broke her face.

“It’s certainly a sight to behold. Quite impressive, don’t you think, Regulus?”

Behind her, the youngest Black son, Regulus appeared as if out of thin air. Though he was nearly as tall as Sirius, he had an unexplained proclivity for appearing whenever his name was whispered at the drop of a hat, as if he was always lurking in the shadows, just far enough away to be forgotten. He was much better groomed than Sirius, with his hair cropped short and his crisp white shirt buttoned and stainless. His shoes were freshly polished, and even his socks looked as if they had been pressed.

With wide eyes, Regulus tried to contain his astonishment. “Yes Mother, indeed.”

“How did you find the ride, my dear?” Walburga asked, approaching Sirius and Cordelia.

“It was wonderful,” Cordelia blushed, “though I can’t say I expected this much chaos.”

With each passing moment, anticipation for Titanic’s departure grew, and with it came louder shouts, jostling people, and the overwhelming sense that they could, at any moment, be trampled like a horde of ants.

Walburga nodded in agreement. “It’s about time we board. Shall we?”

Regulus took his cue, escorting his mother towards the boarding dock. Sirius and Cordelia followed, though with much less grace.

When they finally set foot on the Titanic, its grandeur wasn’t immediate. Sure, there were plush crimson rugs and ornate doors and crewmembers dressed in pristine white suits waiting on their every beckoning call, but it wasn’t until they stepped into the first-class foyer that even Walburga’s breath was stolen.

Above a brilliant cascading staircase arched a luminescent glass dome, painted a lavish pattern that was both dizzying and enthralling to look at. The floors were a shimmering marble, offset against the dark wood that crawled along the staircase and up the walls, leading the way to a grand clock that told the time in beautiful roman numerals.

Sparing no expense, the luxurious furnishings continued into their suite, the most expensive rooms on the ship, of course, hints of gold reflecting in the bedposts, amidst the porcelain bathtub, and along the ceiling. Sirius had been raised in a haughty estate, so he should have been unaffected, but there was something otherworldly about this ship that made him want to keep his hands to himself and make sure he didn’t smudge fingerprints anywhere. Personal servants bustled around, making room for their luggage bags and neatly folding away their clothes.

While Walburga and Cordelia were content heading off to judge the dining offerings, Sirius couldn’t help but feel a prick of excitement, being on the ship for the first time. They would be the first to sip from the crystal glasses, the first to soil pristine sheets, the first to lean over the railing and watch the ship chug away from shore. Sirius couldn’t miss that.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Walburga asked when she saw Sirius head for the outer deck.

“I’ll meet you in a minute,” Sirius said cheerfully, pressing a quick kiss to Cordelia’s cheek, a rare moment of affection that surprised even her. Before Walburga could refute, Sirius charged down the hallway, skidding around corridors and pushing his way through passengers still gaping at the ship. He had expected a crowd on the first-class deck – rich prats couldn’t resist any opportunity to flaunt their money in front of thousands – but he was alone, save for a few bustling crewmen and a seagull perched on the bannister.

With an ear-splitting horn, the Titanic rumbled to life, smoke bursting out of the pipes as the engine began to roll. The docklines were tossed overboard, and a small army of tugboats began the grueling task of guiding the ship away from the dock.

On the main deck below, throngs of second and third-class passengers shouted and waved their hats at the crowd of people gathered on the dock. They were people of little means, a smattering of brown coats and scuffed shoes, but you could never tell from their faces, save for a few missing teeth here and there. These people were delighted to stand on the deck of the Titanic, eyes wild with hope of beginning a new chapter, of setting sail for a faraway place they only knew in their dreams.

Sirius wished with all his might that he could share their enthusiasm. He spotted a small girl sitting on the shoulders of her father, no doubt unable to comprehend the enormity of the occasion but smiling out at the spectators nonetheless. He lifted one hand off the railing and managed a meager wave, unable to see any definitive faces in the bustling crowd, but waving all the same. With the swell of the crowd, he felt the euphoria enter his veins, and waved his hand frantically through the air. It was an empowering moment, a brief blip in time where he was part of something bigger than himself, even if it meant suffering in the clutches of first class posh.

“So long!” He screamed, just because he could.

Just then, Sirius froze, watching as the crowd parted and a man scrambled towards the ship, waving a piece of paper in the air and stumbling with a heavy briefcase behind him. Sirius presumed he was a passenger – an extraordinarily late one at that – and realized that he might not make it onto the ship.

A crewmember tried to stop him, but the boy insisted, holding up his ticket once again. The ship was nearly a full meter away from the dock now, and the gap was only widening. He ran down the platform, a brilliant head of golden curls bouncing on his head, and urged his long legs faster.

“You can do it!” Sirius yelled, joining the chorus of shouts from the passengers safely on deck below him, encouraging the boy faster. “C’mon!”

Throwing his briefcase into the doorway before him, the man steeled himself for the leap. The crowd cheered him on, begging him to jump before it was too late. A collective breath was held when the man finally went for it, and every muscle in Sirius’ body tensed until the boy was aboard. Loud cheering erupted and the entrance was finally locked, sealing all the passengers into the ship. Sirius laughed, joining in on the clapping, and his lungs resumed functioning.

For a brief moment, Sirius wished he could shed his blazer and open the gate down to the main deck to mingle with the other passengers. Cordelia was right – some probably had lice crawling on their skin – but nobody said a word when her wardrobe was infested with bedbugs, so why would he care now? He watched the other travelers hug and dance and jump around, no doubt strangers, but not minding in the least. It only made the absence of anyone beside Sirius even more damning. He tore his eyes away from the scene and started towards the dining room, coattails flapping behind him.

Sitting around a table flanked by his resentful fiancé and his malicious mother was bad. Standing on a balcony watching people celebrate the unbridled life he so desperately wished for was worse.

Walburga, Cordelia, and Regulus were already through their first course by the time Sirius walked through the double doors of the dining room, escorted by a crewman with the most perfectly straight teeth Sirius had ever seen. Not like he was staring at his mouth.

Their table was, of course, in the center of the room to attract the most attention, draped in a delicate white lace tablecloth and decorated with some kind of exotic flowers that made the room smell vaguely of prunes. Sirius balked when he saw two men sitting across from his family. His eyes narrowed and his shoulders instantly rolled back. Insuring the buttons of his coat were in order, Sirius took a deep breath and approached the table.

“Evening, everyone,” he greeted, taking Cordelia’s hand and kissing it. He settled down in the empty chair beside her and nodded at the two men across from him. Walburga sighed in annoyance, but her thin smile never wavered.

“Oh, what a delight to see you,” Mr. Lockhart gushed, “I was just telling the table about my newest novel. Dare I say, I think it’s my best yet. America is in for a treat.” Sirius was fairly certain Mr. Lockhart’s newest novel was just as terrible as the others, but he smiled condescendingly anyways. Mr. Lockhart’s biggest flaw, aside from his atrociously loud purple suit, was that he believed he was a wonderful writer because everyone told him as much. He would probably hear more honest feedback if his teeth weren’t so white and his pockets didn’t sag under the weight of a hundred coins.

Again, not like Sirius was looking at his mouth, or anything.

Sirius motioned for a waiter to fill his wine glass, and wasted no time in tasting the bitter purple liquid. He preferred straight rum or whisky, but the sour grapes would have to do. “I’d love to read it. I didn’t know you’d be joining us, Severus. What a nice surprise.”

Severus Snape glared with his hands a little too close to his sharp cutlery for Sirius’ comfort. Curtained by black, stringy hair, he leaned back in his chair and smiled in a way that reminded Sirius of a pumpkin at Halloween; jagged and messy, carved from stabbing a serrated knife through its skin a hundred times over. “The pleasure is all mine, Sirius.”

“Severus is heading to New York as well,” Cordelia explained, all too aware of the lightning bolts thrown across the table. “I told him he’s welcomed to come to the wedding.”

A flicker of pain shot through Snape’s face before he recovered and smiled fondly at Cordelia, instantly softened by her graceful complexion. “I’ll see if I can rearrange my meetings, but your father might not want to see me.”

“It’s very responsible of you to take on your family’s business at such a young age,” Walburga commended, clearly jabbing at Sirius. “It’s a shame you couldn’t arrange a partnership with the Slytherins.” And now, a clear jab at Severus.

Snape’s eyes darted to Cordelia, and Sirius could see his stomach lurching into his throat. To twist the dagger a little more, Sirius let his arm drape around Cordelia’s shoulders, brushing her ear. “It’s one of my biggest regrets. But, what’s past is past. I’m preparing for a meeting with the Malfoys.”

Walburga’s spoon clattered to the table, ringing out on the porcelain. Sirius’ eyebrows rose, and even Regulus looked up, fork halfway to his mouth. The Malfoys were, of course, the Black’s biggest rivals overseas, a family of oil tycoons that threatened the Black-Slytherin stronghold more and more each day. Marrying Cordelia and keeping with Slytherin tradition was supposed to be the answer. Snape’s family had never been more than a persistent bug in their ears, but with the support of the Malfoys, Walburga suddenly found her family dangling on the edge of a sharp precipice. Sirius hoped he could be the one to push her.

“And how are the Malfoys doing?” Walburga asked tightly.

Sirius was hardly interested in listening to Snape drone on about his newly found fortune in the oil markets, though Walburga leaned in so intently that her hair nearly dangled into her soup. Instead, he let the noisy squabbling tune out into static as his eyes roamed the dining room.He recognized a few patrons – the Astors, of course, sat at their table across the way with pearls dripping on one long neck and a finely sculpted mustache on the other’s lip – and tried to imagine just how much money sat on this ship, waiting to be spoiled in America. Sirius suspected it was enough to send the boat careening to the bottom of the ocean.

At a neighboring table, a young couple shared a tall bottle of wine, though Sirius instantly noticed that they held the glasses wrong – new money, no doubt. The woman wore a gaudy necklace with matching earrings, plated in diamonds and catching the light with every subtle move. Her dress was as expensive as they came, all hand-embroidered silk with a considerably low neckline, the kind Walburga outright rejected for being too modern and ostentatious. Beside her, the man laughed, a fake, haughty sound that indicated that nothing was funny at all, but he wanted the attention. He had a head of blonde hair, so bright it was nearly white, and his jawline was so sharp it could probably cut the steak that was placed in front of Sirius. Forgetting himself, Sirius watched the man. How he licked the wine off his lips like a common college boy. How he sat with one ankle crossed over the other. How he thinly smiled at the woman, clearly disappointed in the lack of attentiveness.

The man caught Sirius’ gaze, who didn’t quite have the sense to stop starting, and his eyebrows furrowed almost aggressively as he nudged his chair closer to the woman and laid a protective hand on her arm. Sirius’ head began to shake, trying to let the man know he wasn’t staring at his wife – it probably wasn’t wise to point out who Sirius was staring at, exactly – but before he could make amends, he felt a sharp bite into the soft flesh of his thigh.

Cordelia’s long nails pressed into his skin, just enough to cause discomfort. Sirius’ eyes flickered down and caught sight of the diamond ring adorning that all-important flashing in the dim light. It wasn’t Sirius’ first engagement ring choice – he thought the diamond was rather boxy and too large for her slender hand – but he had never seen Cordelia without it since the day he – or, rather, Walburga – gave it to her.

Sirius was almost positive that Cordelia knew. This wasn’t the first time that she had caught him staring at another man, and it was a sure bet that it wouldn’t be the last. It had happened on trips to the vineyard, casual outings to the polo field, and even inside his own home as he watched one of the cooks a little too intently. Cordelia had never said a word; she just dug her nails into Sirius’ skin, a reminder that she was beside him, and redirected his attention elsewhere. Sirius wasn’t sure what to make of it.

“So, Sirius,” Lockhart said, slicing into his rare steak. Sirius thought the cow might still be mooing. “Have you completed your studies? Where was it you attended? Cambridge?”

“Oxford,” Sirius correctly lightly, carving a dashing smile into his face. “I graduated just last month.”

“Right, of course. Remind me what you studied?”

God, Lockhart was an idiot. It took everything in Sirius to keep from heaving a heavy sigh. How many times had he visited the Black estate and ravaged their liquor cabinet? “Economics, with a side concentration in classical music.”

Lockhart’s eyebrows lifted, and he hurried to chew his half-alive steak to get another word in. Snape beat him to the punch.

“Music? A curious concentration,” Snape simpered, twirling his wine glass around. “Do you plan to serenade Wall Street for a better oil price?”

“That’s exactly right,” Sirius nodded gamely, a sharp bite in his tone. “I’ve heard that music soothes the savage beast, and I intend to tame a few brutes in New York. Do you have an agenda for the Malfoys? Surely Cambridge must have taught you how to dance with the devil?”

Snape paled, biting back a sharp insult in the presence of the Black matriarch.

Walburga nearly threw her knife into Sirius’ eye. Instead, she smiled sweetly and sipped her champagne. “We have no doubt that Sirius will be fully capable of leading our enterprise through years of prosperity. And I couldn’t be happier to welcome dear Cordelia into our family.”

Lockhart nodded deeply. “The Black-Slytherin household is most certainly be a force to be reckoned with. It’s quite a responsibility, Sirius, but I look forward to seeing your partnership blossom for years to come.” He raised his glass, and the table clinked their flutes together.

Sirius hardly lifted his glass from the table. It felt entirely too heavy, like the glass had turned to lead, and it took both hands to bring the drink to his lips. He downed the wine in one go, much to the wild disbelief of his mother, and wiped the excess liquid off his lips with his napkin, staining the satin a deep crimson.

In the waning hours after dinner, Cordelia made sure the door to their suite was locked before she crossed the room to where Sirius observed a box of paintings, tilting his head and observing one of the frames. He had brought only a few things from home, as he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving his most precious canvas behind, free for his family to burn in the fireplace. With deft fingers, Cordelia wrapped her arms around Sirius’ chest and pressed herself alongside his back.

“I know you don’t want to get married,” she mumbled.

“What, and you do?” Sirius asked, craning his head around to look at her with one eyebrow raised.

“No, I don’t,” she clarified, “but I also don’t want to be miserable for the rest of my life.”

“It’s not so bad once you get used to it,” Sirius shrugged, immediately met with a gentle bat to the hip.

Cordelia shook her head, encouraging Sirius to turn into her body, and reached up on the tips of her toes to press her lips against Sirius’.

Cordelia was a royally confusing pain in Sirius’ ass. This couldn’t be the same Cordelia who looked down her nose at those who had meager livings, who met his eyes with furious irises and bared teeth, who once told him he was better off disinherited and working in a field. Sirius couldn’t lie; Cordelia was a nice kisser, with the way her plump lips moved against his and her tongue always tasting like cherries. There was nothing inherently wrong with this version of Cordelia, but each day was like stumbling towards a cliff with your eyes closed; you never know where the edge is until it’s too late.

Her slender fingers trailed down Sirius’ chest, unbuttoning his shirt and pushing his garments to the floor. Sirius returned the favor with a deep kiss to her neck as he unlaced her corset and guided her towards the bed. Though the mattress was altogether too soft and he could hardly move in its embrace, he settled over Cordelia and made love to her the only way he knew how; with his eyes closed, dreaming about a life that was belonged only to him, far away from his family and this godforsaken boat and every expectation that chased him with a heavy whip and dangling chains. He thought about lean muscles, strong shoulders, sharp jaws. Rough hands and thick thighs and wide hips. The man in the dining room, the crewmember with the straight teeth, the golden-haired boy running to catch the ship.

He thought about them all, and his body ached.

Hours later, with Cordelia sleeping soundly beside him, Sirius bolted upright in bed, breath coming in short pants, eyes wide. On the far side of the room, a candle burned low on the fireplace mantel, bathing the suite in a warm yellow light that did nothing to dim Sirius’ panic. Four luxurious walls were closing in on him, shining golden rings and fancy university degrees and velvet suits and a lifetime of living a life he wanted no part in. An eternity of managing a family business he wished would burn to the ground, partnered with a marriage destined to destroy him. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, groped for his jacket in the dark, and stumbled out of the door, taking off down the hallway at a full sprint.

Throwing open a heavy metal gate, Sirius crashed into the night, careening down the stairs and struggling to keep his feet under him on the deck, slipping on the slick sea spray. He shouldered past people perusing the promenade, not bothering to apologize for his rudeness when they shouted back at him to watch where he was going.

He ran past a man lying on a bench – did he not have a bed? – and threw himself against the railing so hard he nearly dipped over. Sirius’ fingers clamped against the cold metal, eyes staring at the churching water below. The propellers sliced effortlessly into the water, gliding the boat closer to New York. His breath left his mouth in swirling vines of steam, and the air bit at any sliver of exposed skin it could find.

Sirius had never been good at math, but it didn’t look like that far of a jump. A couple seconds of freefall, really. He lifted one leg up to rest on the first rail of the barrier, and then the second. The Blacks had traveled to London for the Olympics four years ago, more for a display of wealth than patriotism. Sirius remembered watching the divers, little clothing covering their bulging muscles, jump from the ten-meter platform, gracefully splashing into the water below.

He could do it. He could jump. He could–

“Nice night for a walk,” a warm voice said behind him, and as Sirius turned, he saw his life flash before his eyes. Not what would happen, but what could happen.


	2. Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @simplysirius for early sneak peaks, fanart, and more fics!  
> Part III coming Friday, November 5th!

Remus Lupin hadn’t intended on stealing a ticket to board the Titanic.

His initial target had been a man’s wallet hanging precariously out of his back pocket, ripe for the taking. To be fair, Remus was only going to steal a couple pound notes before kindly giving the man his wallet back; he didn’t have a need for identification cards or pictures of two chubby children. The man was sitting at the counter, working on his third shot of whiskey; an easy target. It was a game that Remus had become something of an expert at.

Stabbing out the end of his cigarette in the tray, Remus left his table in the dimly lit bar, carrying a battered briefcase with him, and sauntered towards the counter with a dip in his step, readying his free hand. Remus let his shoulder graze the man’s back and brushed his wallet to the floor.

“Oh, sorry mate,” Remus apologized, bending down to retrieve the wallet. With deft fingers, he slipped the paper from the compartment and curled it into his hand. Remus dropped the wallet onto the bar and clapped a warm hand on the man’s back. “Too much bourbon, I think.”

The man narrowed his eyes. For a moment, Remus worried that he was caught; in hindsight, maybe he shouldn’t have chosen the largest bloke in the bar to pickpocket. The burly man was probably a laborer or a mason with the way the muscles in his arms threatened to rip the sleeves of his shirt wide open, and his hands could easily crush the glass of whiskey he was nursing. But then, he smiled, revealing three missing teeth and a drunken glow. “Bourbon’s for bitches. Here, grow some hair on your chest.”

Remus blinked twice before taking the whiskey. He grinned, only too thrilled to avoid a thorough beating, and downed the glass in one go. The liquid was smooth enough, but he twisted his mouth and shook his head, keeping up with his innocent act. The man laughed a throaty, roaring sound.

Tipping his tweed cap, Remus bowed out of the bar, squinting in the bright daylight. The streets of Southampton were alive today, bustling with children and adults alike, anxious to watch the Titanic embark on its maiden voyage. Remus didn’t see much reason to make the trip down to the docks. It was nearly impossible to get anywhere near the marina with all the spectators and cars and horses, and anyway, Remus wasn’t eager to wave goodbye to so many people off to begin their new lives, carried away from the dreary southern coast of England on the boat of dreams. If Remus didn’t have to see it, maybe he could pretend the ache in his chest wasn’t there, either.

God, he wanted to go home. Europe was beautiful for a while, but as soon as the charm wore off and Remus’ pockets were empty, save for a couple stubs of charcoal, it was just as gray and ugly as the coal mine he found work in for a time. At first, it was exhilarating to not have a roof over his head; no walls to contain him, no expectations, no roots to bound his feet. But he soon realized it was impossible to chase love across the ocean without drowning if you don’t know how to swim.

Remus was in London when he first saw the headlines in the newspaper advertising the newest ship in the White Star Fleet. He had approached the salesman intending to ask for a job, but was too distracted by the photo of the enormous ship to remember what he was looking for in the first place. With the fifty pence he collected on the streets that morning, he bought a copy of the newspaper and sat in the nearby park, reading every word a hundred times over until his head hurt and his heart lurched at all the possibilities.

They called it an unsinkable ship, as if God himself had given it feathers to fly across the ocean, an Icarus with metal wings, and promised the utmost luxury, even in the measly third class cabins, with Vinolia soaps and an assortment of chocolate éclairs on the menu. Remus would commit a serious crime to get his hands on a chocolate éclair. Just the thought made his mouth water. They wouldn’t be as good as his father’s sweet shop, but most certainly a close second, a small taste of home. At the end of the article, there was an address of an office listed to purchase tickets.

In the fading afternoon light, Remus sprinted across London, narrowly avoiding speeding cars and bicycles as he crossed over roads and bridges. He arrived at the ticket office just minutes before it was set to close, panting hard and sweating through his thin button down shirt. The office attendant watched him with furrowed eyebrows.

“I’d like … one ticket … on Titanic,” Remus huffed, “third class, please.” He dug in his pockets and pulled out a few jingling coins, shoving them on the counter.

“A third class ticket is eight pounds, sir,” the attendant announced, staring at the pile of coins before him. He turned to a nondescript stack of papers, organizing the already straight pile, all too used to migrants throwing their little change at him, not willing to watch another face fall with the rest of their dreams.

Remus froze, his heart stopping, in a way that mirrored ripping candy away from a child in those few quiet moments before they burst into tears. To his credit, Remus didn’t cry, though he certainly felt his face warming and his eyes twitching. Instead, he gathered his stray coins, numbly apologized to the office attendant, and hobbled away. He found refuge that night in a broken-down hostel alongside the River Thames, and spent hours at the rugged bar hunched over his sketchpad while staring at a woman nursing a martini at the end of the counter. She had this strange, bean shaped birthmark on her cheek, ripe for drawing.

It never occurred to Remus that he would be anything other than an artist. He did fine in school, though he was constantly scolded for the doodles in the margins of his exams, and his father held out a pinch of hope that he would take over the sweet shop someday, but it came to no surprise, least of all to Remus, when he abandoned a stable life and jumped ship to Europe in the name of artistic expression. He set sail on a boat – nowhere near the luxury of Titanic – and then a train, landing somewhere in Italy. From there, he hitchhiked his way to Germany, then Switzerland, and finally Paris before skipping across the channel to England, never staying in one place for more than a few months, the world too rich with opportunity and interesting people to capture with charcoal and ink.

When he had effectively drawn every passing face in the London streets, Remus hopped a ten o’clock schedule south. He wasn’t quite sure where he would end up – jumping on the back of a nondescript train crawling out of Kings Cross didn’t come with a well-planned itinerary – but after a few hours, he could see the ocean spread out before him, vast and full of new, sparkling chances to make something of himself.

Remus found work easily in Southampton, spending his days inside a textile mill, working the machines to spin yarn and wool into luxurious sweaters and cardigans that he knew he would never be able to afford. It felt good though, just for a few minutes, to feel the soft fabric in his fingers, brush it against his arms, and imagine what it would be like to own one. During lunch, he would sit outside on the promenade, meager sandwich in one hand, stick of charcoal in the other, trying to draw steady lines as his coworkers jostled his shoulders. The mill didn’t pay well – but then again, what job did? – so Remus had spent his weekends on the busy main streets, sketchpad in hand, an empty milk jar in front of him.

Despite glowing compliments on his work, no one was willing to pay Remus for his drawings, and after a few patrons sat for portraits and snatched the picture from his fingers without dropping their coins into the jar, he all but gave up on his artist dreams. He couldn’t resent them, though; his drawings lacked life, lacked vitality. They were flat and uninspired. His portraits were grim and his landscapes too heavy-handed. With each drawing, he lost more of himself, the lines between who Remus thought he was and who he wanted to be blurring with every smudge on the paper.

  
That’s how Remus succumbed to petty larceny and hiding in the shadows of bars, waiting to find easy targets with fat wallets and unsuspecting smiles. He was never physical, never harmed anyone, that much he promised. Every time he slipped a few dollars out of bags, his stomach twisted and bile crawled up his throat, thinking about what his mother would say. Her wrinkled eyes would narrow, the piercing blue shooting daggers into his chest, and she’d fold her hands on the table before asking, _is this what you really want?_

Remus had three rules. One: never anyone young, and never a woman. He was not a monster, and he would not prey on girls who were already nervous to walk the streets alone. Two: he would take nothing more than what he needed. There were few things more tempting than a fifty-pound note burning a hole in one particularly well dressed man’s wallet just last week, but Remus only needed enough for a room at a cheap inn and maybe a decent dinner that night. He left the fifty and took just the two-pounder instead. Rule three: give what he didn’t need. Each day, he passed homeless paupers, men and women even worse off than he, who had given up on life and surrendered to a dirty, listless life on the street. No one deserved that. Any spare scraps he came across – and those he managed to smuggle out of the textile mill – were distributed to those who called the streets home. It was, perhaps, a desperate plea to whoever ruled this earth to keep him from the same fate.

It was a stroke of luck, really, that Remus landed in the Leaky Cauldron on April tenth, just hours before the Titanic was about to haul up its anchors and set sail for New York. All he wanted was enough money to help with the rent on the flat he shared with seven other factory workers. When he escaped the bar that day into the bright sunlight, Remus ducked around the building and into a narrow alleyway to examine the bills in his hands. He smoothed a five-pound note on his thigh, relief spreading through his bloodstream; another month under a mostly-solid roof with a decently comfortable bed, if but a bit squeaky. Remus squinted his eyes at the second piece of paper in his hands, a rectangular, tan thing with tiny writing scrawled across. The one thing that wasn’t small? The detailed illustration of a ship in the center, right beside a prominent red flag adorned with a white star.

“This ticket is valid for the launch of the White Star Steamship Titanic,” Remus whispered, afraid that if he didn’t speak the words aloud he’d blink and the ticket would disappear like a cruel dream. “April tenth, nineteen-twelve.”

Remus turned it over in his hand, sure it was a mistake. He felt the cardstock, scratched at the letters, but he couldn’t detect any signs of a forgery. It was real. It was a ticket to a new life – to his old life, back home with his mother and father – and all he had to do was cash it in. But Remus thought about rule number two. What if the man needed to get home? What if he had a family to get back to? Staring at the ticket with tears blurring his vision, Remus shook his head and emerged from the alley.

He turned back into the bar, but stopped in the doorway. The man was nowhere to be seen. Not slumped on a stool, not passed out in a booth, not stumbling around on the sidewalk outside. Remus looked down at his ticket again.

Rule number two: nothing more than he needed.

He needed to go home. He needed a new start. He needed to find himself again.

On the bottom of the ticket, the address of the Southampton port was typed in black, and beside it, the time of departure, twelve-fifteen in the afternoon.

Somewhere off in the distance, a church bell tolled, heavy copper banging against tin, echoing across the city. Remus didn’t need to count the bells to know; the sun was at its peak, high above the clouds, casting long shadows on the ground. Remus had fifteen minutes before the boat of dreams sailed away without him.

His legs didn’t know which way to head, but he began sprinting nonetheless, screaming past pedestrians and calling apologizes over his shoulder. He had some spare clothes folded away in a drawer at his flat, but Remus had his messenger bag hanging off his shoulder, holding his sketchpad, charcoals, and favorite plaid scarf; it was all he needed to prepare for his new life.

Remus had spent many days perusing the Southampton port before he found his job at the textile mill, begging fishing boats for a job, promising that his lean body and lack of muscle wouldn’t prevent him from the rigorous work. Never had he seen the docks like this. Thousands of people crammed onto the promenade screaming wildly, bright flashes exploding from photographers in every direction, a parade of cars carrying the world’s richest patrons to the red velvet boarding platform.

And then there was the Titanic.

God, it was beautiful. It was the manifestation of every reverie that had ever painted Remus’ head. Sure, it was so giant it nearly blocked out the sun and the gleaming paint nearly blinded him, but Remus was frozen in his tracks by the realization that he was about to be on that deck. He’d be on the same ship as some of the world’s most important royals, not quite equals, but sharing in their dream nonetheless. He continued his way through the crowd, trying to slip into small spaces and cause the least amount of disruption amongst the chaos. He received some dirty looks, a few choice expletives, but he pressed on, knowing the clock stopped for nobody, especially not people who hadn’t bathed in three days.

Remus was hardly halfway through the crowd when the dock fell silent, at once startled by the earthshattering blare of the boat horn, followed by an incredible rush of smoke billowing from the four towers. The crowd roared, but Remus managed only a gasp before he was shoving people left and right, one hand holding his bag to his side, the other firmly grasping his ticket above his head.

“Wait! Wait!” Remus yelled, as if anyone could possible hear him over the cheering. “I have a ticket!”

Through bobbing heads and feathered hats, Remus saw the crewmembers toss the docklines connecting the Titanic to the mainland, and knew he had just a moment left before the boat was gone.

Remus threw people aside so viciously some tumbled to the ground, and with his eyes locked on the boarding platform before him, he had no time to apologize. When he made it to the front of the crowd, he hopped over a chain barrier, ignoring the shouts from several White Star Line employees, and waved his ticket in the air.

“Sir, you can’t be here,” a crewmember said, trying to stop Remus.

“No, I have a ticket!” Remus insisted, pressing further towards the boat. He ran up the loading dock, where the ship was inching farther and farther away. It would require a surefooted jump to board the Titanic and not fall into the ocean. “Please, I have a ticket!”

Another man examined his ticket, holding it up to the light. He nodded decidedly, not a moment to lose. “Hurry!”

Remus tossed his bag ahead of him and steeled himself for the leap. There was, in fact, a reason why he hated physical education in primary school. He clenched his teeth, vaguely aware of the crowd behind him chanting _jump, jump, jump_ , and the calls above from passengers leaning over the rail encouraging him, _you can make it, c’mon!_

With a final deep breath, Remus kicked off the ground and suspended in the air for just a second before landing safely inside the metal walls of the Titanic. All around him, the crowd clapped and hollered, and before scrambling into the ship to catch his breath, Remus managed a meager wave. The crewmen closed the door, and Remus clambered against the wall, begging his lungs to keep chugging. He had made it this far, and he’d be damned if his heart gave out now.

Does the plethora of gold and silver and diamonds on board effect the air quality? Wealth had a very pungent odor; the twist of decadent wine, freshly conditioned leather, and intoxicating perfume that, no matter how many times he sneezed, would not leave his nostrils. Remus suddenly found himself wishing he could shower, because god knows he needed a wash after his marathon run through the streets. The poor Titanic didn’t deserve to smell like a sewer rat after just her first voyage.

But first, the moment he had been waiting for since he first saw Titanic splashed over every newspaper in central London.

Following the signs to the main deck promenade, Remus quickly walked – he figured running had no business in the face of such extravagance – to the steps, falling in line with other passengers headed out to wave goodbye to England.

Squeezing himself into a small empty space at the rail, Remus fluttered his hat in the air, waving to the thousands of strange faces watching the boat chug out to sea.

“Goodbye!” He screamed to the people, to England, to a life he knew he would miss, despite every misadventure. “Thank you for everything!” Remus never knew Southampton could look so small, but he watched it shrink to the size of a house, of a car, of a bird, of a pea, until the only thing left behind was a broad horizon, pale blue against the deep cerulean of the ocean.

Remus closed his eyes, letting the wind caress his face and ruffle his hair. He didn’t think that freedom would smell like salt and fish and fresh paint, but he was on the Titanic, wings sprouting from his back, soaring higher than he ever dared, eyes set on a new horizon.

The ship was so large that Remus worried he wouldn’t be able to find his way to his cabin, but that concern was quickly addressed when he made to climb a staircase and was promptly pulled back, scrabbling to keep his feet under him.

“That deck is for first-class passengers only,” a man in a white uniform scolded. “The third-class accommodations are that way.” He pointed down a nondescript staircase, noticeably lacking any lavish furnishings.

Remus nodded his head, and tried a smile on the stone-faced crewman, though it did little to amuse him. “Of course. Thank you.”

His ticket indicated that cabin 121, section M on the E-deck was Remus’ new home for the next few days. It was relatively easy to find it, with the plethora of signs; all Remus really had to do was follow the smell of cheap cigarette smoke and musty shoe polish. It was, apparently, the universal fragrance of his people.

Cabin 121 in section M was a corner room, right off the last staircase, just close enough to hear the buzz of people and music from the floors above. With his hand on the door handle – a cold, solid silver that felt smooth underneath his calloused hands – Remus was about to enter when his stomach twisted in a knot. What if his roommates were expecting the drunken slob from the bar to stumble in? What if they knew he stole the ticket and punished him accordingly? Or worse, what if they called the Master at Arms and they had him thrown off the bow of the ship?

If he wanted to sleep on a bed within the next five days, Remus was going to have to open the door eventually. He straightened out his hat, adjusted the lapels of his jacket, and steeled himself for a hit as he pushed the heavy door open.

Staring back at him were two pairs of eyes, one a placid hazel, the other a beautiful green, that certainly didn’t look like they were about to swing at Remus. The hazel eyes belonged to a tall man with unruly dark hair that splayed against his olive skin as if he had stuck his head into an electrical outlet. He had a football tucked under his arm, and his other hand adjusted the thin, circular spectacles that rest on his nose. Beside him, the woman pulled back her long auburn hair, the most stunning shade of glowing chestnut Remus had ever seen, and grinned at him beneath a constellation of freckles. Her hands settled on her belly, slightly more rotund than the rest of her body.

“Hey mate, how’s it going?” The man asked, extending his hand. “James Potter.”

Remus took his hand. “Remus Lupin. Couldn’t be going better, really.” He greeted the woman with a kind smile.

“Lily Evans Potter,” she introduced, then gestured to her stomach. “And Baby Potter. I hope you don’t mind that we took this side of the room.”

“No, no, that’s fine. Congratulations,” Remus assured, dropping his briefcase on the empty bed on the right. Like him, James and Lily had little belongings with them – just a knapsack of clothes and that partially deflated football, from the looks of it – but their faces were glowing and the small room felt so warm, so comforting, that Remus fought the urge to hug these people he had met not thirty seconds ago.

They looked a little young to have a baby already, Remus thought. He watched them move about in the room, James removing a blanket from his bed so that his wife had an extra layer for the cold night, Lily telling him to stop fussing and that she was plenty warm already. Two people so in love with each other that the sun paled in comparison to their light. James couldn’t be much older than he was, and Remus found his chest aching; he would give anything to hold someone else’s heart in his hands. His fingers were calloused, but he would be so gentle and never squeeze too hard, never let it fall from his palms or wither from neglect.

Remus’ parents had met when they were just twelve years old in secondary school, a fact that they hardly let anyone forget. When Remus hadn’t met anyone interesting by the time he was fifteen, he tried to hide his panic the best he could, claiming he was too busy with school to find someone of consequence. That didn’t stop his parents from not-so-subtly shoving every girl within a five-mile radius of their small town in his face. Remus, ever the gentleman, could never say no for fear of insulting the girls, so he found himself out on date after countless date. Some of the girls were nice, and if Remus squinted hard, he could see a future beside one of them. He could be happy, if he really tried. He remembered one of the girls – Samantha? Scarlett? – he had briefly dated, knocking on her front door to pick her up for a dinner sponsored by his parents’ coin. When the door opened, a tall, skinny boy with soot rubbed on his cheek and a chipped front tooth stood before him. It was the first time Remus’ heart had truly dropped to his stomach, and he wished more than anything that he could switch dinner dates.

“Hey,” James called, nudging his shoulder. “You play?”

Remus eyed the football. “I’m not terrible.”

“Fifty pence says you can’t make it past me,” James bet, heading towards the door for the makeshift football pitch in the hallway. Remus rubbed his palms on his trousers, and looked to Lily for help. James’ head popped back in the room, grimacing. “I don’t have fifty pence to spare either. C’mon.”

Remus grinned, bowing his head at Lily and rushing to join James. Lily crossed her arms on her chest and stood in the doorway, watching Remus dribble the ball, stumbling on his feet a little, and James expertly tending the pretend goal, bouncing on the tips of his toes.

The rest of the day was spent passing the football with Remus’ apparent new best friend, observing the array of food available in the third-class dining room – really just an open area with some benches and tables of almost-stale crackers, bread, and some thin soup – and leaning over the outside deck, watching the Titanic cut through the water like a sharp knife. Much to his disappointment, there were only two bathtubs available for steerage, and by the time Remus had found the washroom, there was already a line longer than he had ever seen at the Sunday soup kitchen in London. Abandoning all hope for a chilling, icy saltwater bath to at least mask some of his stench at the end of the night, Remus climbed the stairs to the main promenade, closing the cabin door quietly behind him so as not to wake the already sleeping Lily.

Remus settled on a bench, shivering in the bitter Atlantic air, watching his breath swirl away in steamy clouds, and stared at the sky. A million constellations spread out before him, twinkling and promising life beyond this humble existence. In his pocket, Remus fumbled with stray stubs of charcoal, trying to picture how he would sketch the scene. He’d be sure to include the tall lookout tower just behind him, and the elegant couples strolling along the deck arm and arm. He would try to capture the gentle glow of the lamplights, the reflection of the moon rippling on the surface of the ocean, but he doubted he could truly illustrate the beauty of it all. A drawing couldn’t convey the feeling of the ocean breeze, or the sound of seagulls crying as they floated on the draft coming off the ship. A drawing was just a still portrait, a snapshot in time. Remus could draw it again and again, and it each time would be different.

The first sketch would show the quiet deck and the stillness of the night. The second sketch would show a man streaking past a bench, his jacket flapping behind him, breath falling from his lips in ragged pants.

Remus sat up quickly and watched the man stagger his way across the promenade, throwing his body at the railing, in real danger of falling headfirst off the ship. The choking sobs wracking the man’s body ricocheted around the deck, impossible not to hear. Remus had two choices: deny all liability and head back to his cabin and sleep the night away, or call for one of the crewmembers’ attention and let them deal with the situation. Naturally, Remus did neither.

Instead, he quietly stood from the bench and padded to where the boy hung his head over the railing. His hands clawed through his long black hair, disheveled and knotted in the back, and his feet, in just slippers, were propped on the first rail of the banister, as if he really was thinking about jumping. Remus wasn’t sure how to speak without spooking the boy and risking him hanging onto the boat by a few fingers, but his eyes caught the boy’s left leg lifting higher to the second rung, and Remus knew he had to act fast.

“Nice night for a walk,” he said quietly, hands ready to reach out and pull the boy to safety.

He turned quickly, eyes wide, face seared with panic, as his foot found a solid hold on the middle bar. His jaw was clenched so hard it looked like his teeth could shatter at any moment, and his knuckles were bright white around the railing.

“They’re really beautiful, huh?” Remus asked, gesturing towards the sky.

The man’s eyes never left Remus’, too afraid to look anywhere else. “What?” He croaked, his voice caught in his throat and shaking with panic.

Remus had a brief stint working at a slaughterhouse in Germany – he lasted three hours, to be exact – and could never forget that pleading, desolate look in a cow’s eyes when it knew it was about to die. And now, Remus saw it reflected in the man’s face, waiting for someone to pull the trigger.

“The stars,” Remus clarified, realizing it might not be a great idea for someone hanging halfway off a ship to stare up at the sky.

“Yeah,” he replied without looking. “You should go.”

Remus approached the man with his palms forward, a gesture of innocence, as he settled against the rail beside him. It was a great view of the back of the ship, of the powerful propellers forcing the boat through the water, perfect for chewing someone up and spitting them out in the white wave wake. He swallowed thickly.

“I really like walking at night,” Remus said, decidedly not looking at the man. “Nice and peaceful. No one really bothers you.” The man’s eyes narrowed. Remus supposed he was the one doing the bothering. “Problem is that it’s so damn cold. Definitely not a good night for a swim.”

“You should go,” the man repeated, his voice stronger this time. His right foot joined his left on the second rail. Remus’ fingers tingled, and he fought the urge to rip him from the fence. If he moved too quickly, he knew it was all over.

“One time I was in Scotland and I tried ice skating on this frozen pond in the Highlands,” Remus recalled, rubbing his palms together to try and generate some heat. God, it was cold out here. “I thought the ice was thick enough, but it cracked when I was out in the middle. Took my buddy almost an hour to pull me to shore. Nearly froze to death. It’s like a thousand needles in your skin. Felt like a porcupine. Hard to think this water is even colder than that.”

The man licked his lips, daring a look into the dark ocean. Reconsidering, maybe. “Please go,” he whispered, begging now. Crystal tear tracks dripped down his cheeks, freezing a little on his skin.

“I’ll go if you step off the rail, mate,” Remus promised, eyeing his feet.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you care?” He nearly growled, anger rising in his voice, baring his teeth in an attempt to keep his misty eyes at bay. Maybe it was just the stinging wind.

Remus shrugged, inching closer to the boy. He could smell him now, all lavish soap and velvet cologne. “I just don’t think you should do what you’re thinking about doing.” The man took this into consideration, but his grip on the railing only tightened. Remus reached out his hand. “C’mon. I’ll let you bum a smoke.”

“Get away from me,” the man snarled, defiantly climbing to the top rung of the railing. “Leave me alone.”

“I thought we already established that I’m not going anywhere.” Remus risked a look at the man’s steely gaze. He was vicious, teeth leaking venom, daring Remus to make another move. “Can I ask why you’re standing on the edge of this boat?”

“No, you can’t,” he denied, lifting his leg over the top bar, officially on the wrong side of the boat. If he slipped, the only thing to catch him would be the black hands of the ocean.

Remus’ blood ran cold. He wracked his brain, trying to figure out what to do. Should he call for help? What if he startled the boy and he slipped before anyone could come to his rescue?

With a lump in his throat, Remus breathed, “alright, then.” He hoisted himself up on the rail and climbed over to the other side, trying not to look down or think about how slick the metal was with sea spray. Now was not a good time to remember that he could swim about as well as a fish without fins.

The man’s heavy breathing stilled as he watched Remus join him. “What are you doing?”

“Joining you,” Remus said, as if it explained everything. He took a deep breath. “Wow, the air is a lot nicer over here.”

“Shut up,” the boy mumbled. “You’re an idiot.”

“Yeah, probably,” Remus agreed, “but you were the first one hanging off the back of a ship.”

That made the man laugh a little, a choked, chesty noise that almost sounded like it hurt. He swallowed thickly, adjusting his grip on the railing. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay. I’ll come down.”

“On the right side of this damn railing, I hope,” Remus said, trying to laugh off his genuine fear that the man beside him was about to fall into the water.

To his surprise, the man nodded. “Yes. On the right side.”

Remus scrambled over the rail, landing hard on the deck, but on solid ground nonetheless. He pulled himself to his feet and offered his hand to the boy, still dangling.

With a final breath, the man took Remus’ hand and made his way slowly over the rail, until his lingering foot slipped and he was sent barreling towards the ocean.

“Shit!” Remus gasped, holding onto the boy’s slick hand as tight as he could.

“Help me!” The man screamed, his voice echoing in the quiet night. “Help, please!”

“I got you! Don’t let go of me!” Remus demanded. “Use your foot!”

“I can’t!”

“Yes you can!” Remus braced himself against the railing as the boy flailed about, slippers sliding against the smooth hull. He screamed again, fingers aching, and Remus grunted with the effort as he gathered every ounce of strength in his body and hauled him up and over the railing.

The two men stumbled back onto the deck, landing in an awkward heap, Remus on top of the absolute madman. Remus lifted his head off his chest and grimaced. “I told you, you could do it.”

“Thank you,” the man said breathlessly, “I–”

He was cut off by the sound of hurried footsteps stomping on the sleek wooden deck, and Remus looked up just in time to see an army of white coats galloping their way, as if there was a fire. A woman in a silk dressing gown trotted behind them.

“What’s going on here?” One of the white coats boomed, taking in the scene.

A third-class passenger on top of one of the richest men on the boat. A grimy hand inside a luxurious evening jacket. Disheveled clothes and flushed cheeks, signs of a serious struggle.

Remus stumbled away, scooting back on his ass like a child being scolded.

Another white coat peered down at him. “Don’t go anywhere, thief! Turn out your pockets!”

Remus did as he was told, and gazed at the wannabe-policeman through hard eyes as bits of charcoal and a candy wrapper rolled onto the deck. The crewmates felt around his jacket, sure he must be concealing something of value.

“Sirius!” The woman cried, kneeling beside the man and taking his face in her hands. “What were you doing?”

 _Sirius._ What an exquisite name.

From his years in the streets, Remus had learned quickly that officers are not interested in listening to a poor boy’s excuse for existing. He kept quiet, eyes pleading with the man apparently named Sirius to think quickly on his feet.

“I had trouble sleeping,” he said quietly, only looking at Remus. “I came out onto the deck for some air. I thought I saw a dolphin chasing the boat, so I leaned over and, well, I just slipped. Thankfully, this man was around to save me.” The lie slipped easily, as if it was second nature to him.

“Is this true?” A white coat asked Remus. He nodded fervently.

The woman batted Sirius’ shoulders. “You bloody idiot! You could have been killed!”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” Sirius answered wryly.

She pretended not to notice the crude remark, instead abandoning him and crossing over to Remus, taking his hand in hers, albeit rather daintily upon eyeing his tattered clothes. “Thank you, sir. Perhaps I can repay you–”

“No, please, you don’t have to do that,” Remus declined, shaking his head. Money for saving someone’s life? Is that all a life is worth? A couple pound notes? The woman frowned, but retreated easily enough to her partner.

Sirius stood up, dusting himself off, and extended a hand to Remus, helping him to his feet. “You saved my life. You deserve a reward.” His eyes swept up and down Remus’ body, as if he was looking at him for the first time. “Join us for dinner tomorrow. Please.”

Something in Remus’ stomach lurched on the last word as it fell from Sirius’ lips, so quietly, as if he was pleading for his life again. Everything in his body screamed to decline the offer, to retreat to cabin 121 and fall asleep to the sound of James and Lily breathing, to forget this night had ever happened and continue to live his life like the poor boy he was.

Inexplicably, he found himself smiling. “That would be lovely.”


	3. Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @simplysirius for sneak peaks, more fics, and fanart!  
> Part IV coming Monday November 9th!

The beds in the third-class cabins of the Titanic weren’t luxurious or grand by any means, but they had a wonderful lack of bedbugs and the springs didn’t squeak too much, so Remus tried to stay wrapped in his sheets for as long as possible the next morning, savoring the feeling of soft cotton against his bare legs. He lay there, in that svelte state of not quite sleeping, but not really committing to opening his eyes yet, either, listening to the water splash against the steel hull.

A loud banging on the door startled him so quickly that he nearly fell off his bed, clawing at the covers to keep from going over. Beside him, Lily stirred, her face paling a sickly green, and pulled the covers over her head. James jumped down from the top bunk to get the door before it disturbed Lily any further, closing it shut to keep the noise out. A moment later, he poked his head back in.

“Remus? It’s for you,” he said, holding the door open to reveal a crewmate in a dashing suit, with a stunning officers hat sitting perfectly on his well-manicured head.

Untangling himself from his blankets, Remus padded over and pulled the door behind him, blushing a little when he realized he was only in his boxers and undershirt.

“Mr. Remus Lupin?” The man asked, his eyes trailing up and down Remus’ body as if he was sure he had the wrong room. He glanced at a little scrap of paper in his hands that had Remus’ name written in the finest cursive.

“That’s me,” Remus confirmed, crossing his arms on his chest to shield himself from view. He figured he was either about to be punched – a late reaction to last night’s events – or hugged – an equally terrifying option – but wasn’t sure which.

The man passed him the scrap of paper, puckering his lips to one side as if it physically hurt him to do so. “Mr. Black invites you to have a drink with him on the B-deck.”

Remus took the card, his heart stalling at once. He looked at the crewmate, trying to detect a lie, but the man’s face was stone cold as he took in Remus’ attire for the second time.

Sirius wanted to have a drink with him? Why? To prepare him for the utter embarrassment that dinner was sure to be? Why did he even say yes in the first place? He only owned one jacket, one pair of pants, and some ugly brown shoes that had a hole in the heel; Remus would hardly slip past the dining room doors. He supposed meeting the boy for a drink would be the best time to kindly decline the dinner offer.

“Uh, sure,” Remus said. “When should I meet him?”

“Now,” the crewmate said, impatiently looking at his watch. “Might I suggest some pants?”

With crimson cheeks, Remus ducked back into the cabin and pulled on his trousers in such a hurry that he tripped and landed on the ground. James watched from his bed in amusement, eyebrows arched over his glasses.

“Rubbing elbows with the goldbricks, huh?” He smirked. “Steal a whiskey glass for me. I collect them.” Remus clocked the small offering of items that James and Lily stored on the floor. James caught him looking and shrugged. “It’ll be my first one.”

Tipping his hat and collecting his briefcase, Remus clipped his overalls into place and joined the mate in the hallway. He didn’t seem any more impressed with Remus’ stained shirt and rough jacket hanging over his arm, stunned that Remus knew how to tie his shoes. Remus thought about accidentally-on-purpose stepping on the heel of the man’s loafers, scuffing the polished leather, but his legs were already wobbly under the nervousness of meeting Sirius again – properly this time – and he couldn’t risk the effort.

Sirius did what any normal person would do the morning after they decided dangling off the edge of a ship above a freezing, tumultuous ocean was a great way to get your adrenaline pumping following a spectacular panic attack in the wake of fucking your intolerable fiancé; he disappeared.

He was under no illusion that Cordelia would keep last night’s festivities under wraps. In fact, Sirius was surprised that she hadn’t woken Walburga when they returned to their suite to tell her all about the fascinating decisions her son had made. Instead, she decided she’d wait until morning, when the bright sunlight could fully capture the rage on Walburga’s face, searing into every stubborn wrinkle and pucker on her skin. Sirius had seen that look many times – the venomous grimace, the steely gaze, the curling fingers – and was frankly not interested in seeing it again. As soon as his eyes fluttered open he was out of bed, changing into a freshly pressed set of clothes and slipping out the door before Cordelia could stir.

There were few places Sirius could go without fear of his mother creeping around the corner. Third-class accommodations would be the most obvious place – Walburga would, under no circumstances, not even if the boat was on fire, succumb that low – but he knew he’d be sorely out of place. Even with his blazer hanging off his arm, his shirt was far too white and his skin too fragranced from the strong bath soap to blend into the shadows. Sirius wondered if the Captain would let him sit in his quarters for a bit under the persuasion of a few pound notes, but he didn’t feel like trying to make small talk with a man three times his senior.

The second-class deck was, then, the best place for Sirius to hide in plain sight. It had a healthy number of passengers with spare coins jingling in their pockets, and their suits were of decent quality, so he wouldn’t cause as much of a distraction. Before he unlatched the gate to the lower deck, he waved over a shipmate.

“Do you have a piece of paper?” He asked, knowing full well the worker was prepared. He took the outstretched pen and pad, scribbled some words, and handed it back, along with a pound note. “Find a Mr. Remus Lupin. I’d like to have a drink with him on the B-deck. You might start your search in the third-class cabins.”

The crewmember couldn’t quite hide the confusion twisting on his face but nodded gamely, hurrying away.

Sirius descended to the B-deck, ordered a shot of gin with a lemon and two ice cubes, and sat down with his feet propped on the table, just because he could, and waited.

Not thirty minutes later, someone cleared their throat behind him. He turned, suddenly straightening up and righting his legs.

“Mr. Black? Mr. Lupin, as you requested,” the crewmate announced, stepping aside to reveal Remus trying to right his unruly curls and smooth out the wrinkles in his shirt.

Sirius nodded, effectively dismissing the sailor. He motioned to the chair beside him, awkwardly standing up, and tried to smile, if but a bit crookedly. “Please, sit.”

Remus moved mechanically to the chair, willing himself to get it together. He eyed the empty glass in front of Sirius, then noted the sun hardly halfway to its peak in the sky. The rich and the poor had more in common than most people thought; they both liked to start drinking early, apparently.

“I thought we should properly introduce ourselves,” Sirius said, fingers fumbling with the fabric of his pants under the table. In the bright sun, Sirius could now see jagged scars littering Remus’ skin, crawling down his neck and over his knuckles and across his nose. Some were just faint red lines, others angry white and maroon cuts that were permanent fixtures on his pale body. Sirius tried not to let his eyes linger. “Last night was … not my best showing.”

“Right,” Remus agreed, a little too focused on the brilliant blue eyes staring back at him. They weren’t blue like the cloudless sky around them, nor were they as dark as the ocean below them. Sirius had eyes that struck like lightning, flashes of furious passion hidden by walls of azure handkerchiefs and sterling cufflinks. He was almost too intense to look at, all chiseled jawline and clean-shaven cheeks and straight teeth, framed by lustrous sable hair that fell to just below his shoulder. It was curious, Remus thought; he had never seen someone so high class with such long hair. He held his hand across the table. “Remus Lupin.”

Sirius took his hand in a firm shake that lasted a moment too long. “Sirius Orion Black.”

“Sirius Orion, huh?” Remus asked without thinking. His eyes darted away, his tongue licking over terribly plump lips. Sirius tried to ignore the way the sun bounced off Remus’ head of ringlets like a celestial halo, and he definitely wasn’t looking at the fine layer of scruff covering his jaw, nor the way the blood rushed to his soft cheeks and ignited his face. And for the record, Sirius did not even notice the way Remus’ eyes, a devastating russet that promised everything and revealed nothing, roamed his face.

“Just Sirius,” he corrected, reaching for his empty glass. By the time he returned to his suite, he hoped he’d be sloshed enough to spend the rest of the day in a drunken coma, waking up only for dinner to have another glass of that red stuff. He had to admit, it wasn’t bad. “Do you want a drink?”

“No, thank you,” Remus declined, swallowing his dry throat, wishing he was drunk.

Sirius waved his hand and a crewmember appeared almost instantaneously. Though they were on the second-class deck, his appearance had not gone entirely unnoticed. “Another gin for me please. And one for my friend. You do like gin, yeah?”

“Sure. But fire whiskey is the drink of champions,” Remus smiled sheepishly.

“Do you have fire whiskey?” Sirius asked the crewmate.

He shook his head. “Sorry sir, not that I’m aware of. I can talk to the vintner–”

“Gin is fine then,” Remus assured, sorry he ever said anything. The crewmate looked to Sirius to confirm, and disappeared when he nodded.

Sirius folded his arms on the table. “What is fire whiskey? I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s cheap stuff. Nearly burns your throat going down. You can get drunk off just a shot,” Remus explained, thinking back to long nights mulling around with his factory boys, passing a bottle around. Sometimes, it was the only thing to keep them warm against the English cold seeping in through the cracks in the walls.

With wiggling eyebrows, Sirius grinned, “sounds like my kind of stuff then. You aren’t from around here.” It was only the most obvious thing Sirius could have said. Remus didn’t speak with an English twang, nor an Irish jig. He sounded just like Cordelia – blandly American – though he was soft spoken, a smooth velvet in his voice that wrapped around Sirius with gentle hands. “You’re American.”

“So I’ve been told,” Remus nodded. “You’re English. Surrey, probably?”

Sirius raised an eyebrow. “That is only slightly concerning.”

“It’s a little obvious,” Remus admitted, shrugging one shoulder.

“How?” Sirius asked. Remus rubbed his lips together, like he didn’t want to answer for fear of retribution. “If it’s something insulting, please, by all means. I’d love to hear it.”

“Only posh nobs with money burning through their pipes wear checkered blue suits with their shirts buttoned like that.”

Sirius looked down at his suit, a nice navy three piece that cost him more than he would care to admit. “How should I wear it then?”

Remus’ body burned as he said, “without the top buttons fastened. Can you even breathe?”

Doing as he was told, Sirius undid the buttons, his shoulders instantly relaxing without the fabric cutting the circulation off his throat. While he was at it, he shook off his cufflinks and rolled up his sleeves like that of a working man. Remus tried not to stare, but he felt rude looking away, so he let his eyes linger. Sirius pretended not to notice.

“Better?”

“Much,” Remus said tightly, never so grateful to see a double shot of gin sitting on a platter heading his way. The crewmate distributed the drinks and Remus scrambled for his spare change, until Sirius passed the waiter a buck and sent him away.

“Can I ask you something?” Sirius said, sipping his drink.

Remus took the opportunity to gulp down half his glass. “I suspect you will anyways.”

“What were you doing out last night?” He watched Remus’ expression slowly change, trying to follow the track of the conversation. “I mean, it was pretty late. Are you a vampire?”

“I’m not that interesting, unfortunately,” Remus laughed, resting his elbows on the table before he remembered his manners. “I just like being awake at night. Staring at the stars.” He swirled the ice cubes around in his drink, working up the nerve. “What were you doing out last night?”

The smile slipped from Sirius’ face almost immediately. He sat back in chair, crossing and uncrossing his ankles, fingers gripping his biceps tightly, and for a long moment, Remus assumed he wasn’t going to answer. When he finally did, his voice was stricken.

“Have you ever seen a fox with its leg caught in a trap? The way it thrashes and shrieks in an empty forest? It cries and cries and just when it thinks it’s going to be freed, it gets shot in the head. I’m sitting in these rooms with all these people screaming my lungs out, but everybody pretends not to hear anything. When I try to escape, I can’t run fast enough or far enough, and I end up right back where I started. I couldn’t take it anymore. So…I climbed the railing.”

“And jumping was the best option?” Remus asked slowly.

“I don’t expect you to understand. Poor rich prick, right?” Sirius lamented, shrugging away the conversation.

“No, I mean, I do understand. A little. I can try to understand, at least,” Remus insisted, struggling to shake Sirius’ bewildered expression from his head. “The woman from last night. She’s the problem?”

“Cordelia Slytherin. She’s only part of the problem.”

“Slytherin, huh?” Remus mused, his eyebrows shooting up. He was well aware of the Slytherin family name sitting on barrels of oil wearing golden crowns. “You got your work cut out for you.”

Sirius pinched the bridge of his nose. “Everyone calls this stupid thing the ship of dreams.” He kicked at the deck. “But I feel like I’m sailing straight into a guillotine.”

Remus wasn’t sure what to say to that. Sirius stared at his drink with hooded eyes, face unreadable but clearly disturbed. Suddenly, Sirius sat up, a little too uncomfortable under such a sympathetic gaze, and downed the rest of his gin.

“Well, I didn’t invite you for a drink so you could hear about my miserable rich life,” Sirius said, trying to laugh but choking on it.

“If we’re being honest,” Remus replied, “why did you invite me for a drink?”

Something inside Sirius’ chest tightened at Remus’ soft question, the implications looming overhead like the drafting seagulls. Remus was curious, naturally, but there was an undeniable thread of hope looping his words together, though neither was really sure what they were hoping for in the first place.

Why did Sirius invite him? Surely, he could have had a drink with someone who didn’t see him in the darkest hours of the night, ready to leap to his untimely death. It was unbecoming. Sirius figured it was probably just because even breathing the same air as a third-class passenger would infuriate his mother, which was a treat anyways. But as hard as he tried to convince himself, he knew it simply wasn’t the whole truth.

“Why did you bring your briefcase?” Sirius asked, pointedly avoiding the question and instead gesturing to the ground, where Remus’ bag leaned against his chair leg. “You don’t strike me as a business man.” As soon as the words slipped out of his mouth, Sirius realized how insulting they were. Remus raised a single eyebrow. “I didn’t mean it like that–”

“I know,” Remus smiled gently, taking no offense at all. He knew what an insult to his class sounded like, and it wasn’t delivered with such a smoky rasp. “It’s just a habit, I guess. It’s only got my sketchbook and a few other things, but I’d rather not lose it.”

Sirius perked up. “You’re an artist?”

“Recreationally,” Remus admitted sheepishly.

“If you make art, you’re an artist,” Sirius declared, prompting Remus’ heart to swell. “Can I see?”

Remus chewed on the inside of his cheeks, trying to find a solid excuse why he couldn’t hand over his sketchbook. He had never shown anyone his drawings before – not since a pretentious street artist in Montmartre laughed at the streaks in his portraits and the smudging along the edges – and after his disastrous attempt selling his work, it seemed like as good a time as any to quit. But Sirius was staring at him with a terribly stupid, crooked smile, his hand outstretched across the table. He relented.

Sirius flipped through the pages quietly, with careful fingers so as not to rip the paper. Remus didn’t want to look but couldn’t help himself, eyes flickering from his face to the sketchbook and back. His stomach churned as he tried to decipher Sirius’ expression, frustratingly placid and giving little information into what he thought. When he reached the end of the book, some grueling minutes later, he drummed his fingers on the front cover.

“Have you seen any of Picasso’s pencil drawings?”

It wasn’t the answer Remus expected. “Not very many.”

“You’re better,” Sirius said with intimidating ferocity, no room for argument. “Your lines are messy and some of your proportions are off, but they’re innately humanistic and perfectly flawed.”

“T-Thank you,” Remus stuttered, at a loss for words. Then and there, he almost asked to draw Sirius, but he was at once afraid he wouldn’t be able to capture his genuine essence – all wild eyes and bombastic hair – so he fumbled with the hem of his jacket instead.

Sirius flipped through the book again. “I suspect this is why you traveled to Europe? To be an artist?”

Remus laughed lightly. “That’s what I told my mother, at least.”

Knowing the feeling all too well, Sirius peered at Remus, knowing there was more to the story. There was always more to the story when it came to concealing things from mothers’ prying eyes. He silently pressed Remus, too curious for his own good.

“I figured my mother would rather think I’m going to Paris to become an artist than traveling halfway around the world for someone who didn’t love me back. She wasn’t a big fan of his,” Remus explained, eyes widening as the last words left his mouth.

_His._

Sirius picked up on it immediately, the hackles on the back of his neck raising, a knot growing below the gold buckle of his belt. By the panic searing on his face, Remus hadn’t meant to expose himself, and Sirius heard his own lungs sharply inhale, unable to hide his shock. His throat felt dry and his head a little foggy, though maybe that was from the gin, and his body fell numb. If he tried to stand, Sirius would crumble to the ground.

Remus was waiting to be escorted off the deck and locked in the boiler room. His body was burning, and he wouldn’t mind taking a dip in the glacial ocean. With no possible way to explain himself without putting his foot in his mouth, Remus dug in his briefcase.

“Do you want some chocolate?” Remus asked, holding out the spare bar. It was a little mushed and a bit melted.

“Chocolate?” Sirius choked, clearing his throat.

Remus tore off part of the wrapper and broke off a chunk. God, he was an idiot. Stress-eating a chocolate bar he had stolen from a farmer’s market in front of one of the richest and most handsome men on the ship. “Yeah, my parents own a sweet shop back home, so I always carry some chocolate around in case I get homesick. Here.”

He was talking too fast and he couldn’t stop his fingers from shaking as he gave Sirius a piece. To his credit, Sirius ate it, perhaps out of politeness more than anything, before they lapsed into a tense silence.

Sirius was the first to stand up, adjusting his tie, feeling slightly exposed with his unbuttoned shirt. He decided it was a good feeling. “Dinner is at seven tonight. We’ll meet by the clock?”

Before Remus could mumble a response, Sirius was striding down the deck, hands buried in his pockets, making a beeline for the first-class quarters. He pushed past a tall man with stringy hair rather violently and disappeared.

What had just happened?

There was something in Sirius’ face just a moment ago, something in the way that the sun caught in his eyes, that made Remus squirm. He let himself imagine the impossible possibility for just a second – that Sirius was, like him, not wholly attracted to girls, and he wasn’t staring at his mouth just to look at his teeth – before it was too painful to bear. He stubbed that light of hope out like the ashy ends of a cigarette and stood, swaying on his feet.

“Remus!” Someone yelled from the deck below.

From over the rail, Remus saw James waving his hands above his head, despite desperate pleas from Lily to prevent a scene.

“What was that about?” James probed when Remus approached him, poking at his ribs. “Selling your soul to the devil?

“It was nothing,” Remus tried to dismiss, though he knew that drinking a double shot of gin at ten in the morning with a first-class aristocrat could, in no short terms, be brushed off as insignificant. Even Lily pursed her lips, trying to contain her skepticism. “I met him last night and we got to talking. He invited me to dinner with his family tonight.”

Nearly jumping on top of Remus, James exclaimed, “Holy shit!”

“Sirius Black invited you to dinner?” Lily repeated, clearly impressed.

“They’re best friends,” James teased, nudging at Lily’s side and receiving a loathsome glare.

“I’ve met him a few times,” Lily said offhandedly, returning to the book in her lap. Remus couldn’t see the title, but the pages were crisp and the binding a bright red. It certainly wasn’t like any of the books Remus found in the thrift stores. “He’s nice enough, given his family.”

Remus looked between Lily and James, clearly missing something. Their clothes were stained and patched with ugly fabrics, and the football that rolled between James’ feet was peeling at the seams. How had Lily already met not only Sirius, but his family?

James chuckled as he watched Remus’ brain struggle to make the connection. He laid a hand on Lily’s shoulder, gesturing to the hundreds of third-class passengers enjoying the sun around them. “Does Lils really look like she fits in with this lot?”

“That’s rude,” Lily huffed, batting James away. She turned to Remus. “Let’s just say that lords don’t appreciate when their daughters run away with the hired help.”

Beside her, James smiled haughtily, proud that his charm and charisma won over the most beautiful girl in Northern England. He only wished it hadn’t come with such a large price.

“So, you’re dining with the Blacks tonight?” She asked again, just to be clear. Remus didn’t appear as nervous as he ought to be.

“Yes.”

“Do you have any idea what you’ve got yourself into?”


	4. Part IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @simplysirius for more fics, sneak peaks, and fanart! I also take requests! :)  
> Part V coming Wednesday, Nov 9; hope you're ready to get your Irish jig on!

Revelation number one: the gin on the Titanic was not that great.

Revelation number two: the gin on the Titanic tasted better in the company of one Remus Lupin.

Revelation number three: Remus Lupin was gay. Or, at least, he liked boys. Especially the one he chased across the Atlantic. Potentially the one he just drank a glass of gin with.

Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.

Sirius tried not to let his imagination run away with him, but it was something out of a storybook. Surely, Remus misspoke? It was a quiet, offhanded declaration, but all Sirius heard was an enticing, velvet voice begging him to take the hint. He would take it. He would take it and kiss it and tuck it in his breast pocket for safe keeping, right up against his heart.

He could do it, if he wanted to. Sirius could kiss him. Touch him. Hold him, hug him, love him. It made his stomach lurch into his throat just thinking about it. He wanted Remus – needed him, even – and for just a few moments, Sirius let himself imagine a life that had only ever existed in his dreams.

Warm Sunday mornings with tea and scones in bed, ankles hooked together, lips ghosting bare shoulders, hair disheveled from the night before. Long drives in the country, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on a strong thigh, wind caressing their faces. Building a home together with enough room for a towering Christmas tree, one of those fluffy sheepdogs, and a tiny human or two.

Sirius’ face felt hot, his blood burning his body. He thought he might die from his heart spontaneously combusting. It didn’t seem like such a bad way to go.

No matter how impossible or improbable or insane it was to think that any of this was in the cards he had already been dealt, Sirius skipped back to his room, indulging, for once, in a life worth living.

Not even the prospect of seeing his mother and Cordelia could sour his mood.

“She’s absolutely ripshit,” Regulus whispered as Sirius slipped into his suite, abandoning the tie on his neck, half-knotted and hopelessly tangled. “Where the hell were you?”

“I went for a walk,” Sirius shrugged, tugging at Regulus’ tie and undoing the loop. “You really should learn how to tie one of these things soon. I’m not going to be able to do it for the rest of your life.”

Regulus batted Sirius, mouth pressing into a hard line. “I’m serious.”

“Hey, me too.” Regulus rolled his eyes, like he had heard that joke a thousand times. Sirius tilted his head. “Are you okay?”

His little brother nodded slightly, not really sure if he was okay or not. Regulus swallowed as Sirius secured the tie against his throat. “Why do you do this?”

“You won’t believe me if I told you I didn’t try,” Sirius said wryly, and Regulus hummed in agreement. “We deserve to live, Reg. We weren’t born to die with her.”

“You’re going to die if you keep it up,” Regulus whispered, reaching out to right Sirius’ jacket. His eyes clouded, sullen complexion suddenly tilling Sirius. “And then I’ll be alone. I don’t think I can do that, Sirius.”

Sirius enveloped Regulus with two strong arms, pulling him into his chest and squeezing tighter when he heard a muffled sniff. He didn’t remember the last time he had touched Regulus, let alone hugged him like this. It was strange and unfamiliar, not quite right, like jamming two misshapen puzzle pieces together, but somehow, they still made the same picture.

“I won’t let anything happen to you, okay? I promise.”

Regulus nodded, excavating himself from Sirius’ body, and turning back to his dresser, looking for a distraction.

Sirius clasped Regulus’ shoulder and walked into the adjoining room, bracing for the tornado. He found Cordelia sitting just around the corner in front of a selection of freshly cut fruit. Upon catching his glance, she bit into a grape rather harshly.

“Good morning,” Sirius greeted, earning an icy glare and another vicious bite. Cordelia probably wished that grape was Sirius’ head. It didn’t seem like such a bad thing.

“How wonderful for you to join us,” Walburga cheered from the far side of the room, staring at Sirius through a mirror as two servants finished lacing her dress. It was a stunning deep purple, perfect for exaggerating her ghoulish face. “Cordelia was just telling me about your evening.”

Sirius swiped a piece of melon through a swath of cream cheese, and double dipped just to see Cordelia stick out her lips in protest. “It was quite an adventure.”

Walburga dismissed her maids with a quick switch of her hand, and no sooner did the door shut behind them did she bury her nails in the back of Sirius’ neck. He grit his teeth, but refused to flinch. “You will not make a mockery of this family, do you understand?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Mother,” Sirius assured, his voice lofty and noncommittal. “The melon is great.”

Nails digging in harder, Walburga pressed on. “I heard you invited a stowaway to join us tonight. To our extremely important dinner, lest you forget.”

Shit. Sirius had forgotten. Snape would be there, no doubt, along with Lockhart. Notable additions included Thomas Andrews, the genius who built the Titanic, and the Astors, and probably other lords and ladies whose names Sirius didn’t bother to remember. They were all invited to the wedding, of course, though Walburga seldom invited others to join her for dinner without an insidious motivation. They would be allies in the next generation of the Black enterprise, no doubt. This wasn’t a dinner. It was a war meeting.

“I haven’t forgotten,” Sirius lied smoothly. “Inviting a man from steerage will show your charity. After all, he did save your son’s life. What better reward?” The words burned on Sirius’ tongue; though it was true that Remus was third class, it was wholly unfair to denounce him to a singular, rotten title.

Walburga narrowed her eyes. She must have liked what Sirius said, for she removed her nails from his skin and stepped back to the mirror to come her hair into place. Sirius imagined devil horns growing from either side of her head. “If you pull anything like what you did last night again, I’ll throw you off this ship myself.” She powdered her nose delicately, as if she hadn’t just threatened to end her son’s life. Cordelia watched out of the corner of her eye, trying to disappear.

“I slipped,” Sirius said weakly, used to the insults, but still feeling the salt air rub into his wounds.

“I’m sure you did,” Walburga nodded. “Button your shirt, Sirius. We aren’t tramps. Cordelia, darling, make sure you wear that pink gown tonight. It will look lovely with your necklace.”

Sirius looked at Cordelia with a furrowed brow. Cordelia had, notoriously, hated necklaces. Thin necklaces, gaudy necklaces, expensive necklaces that could have bought Sirius a brand-new car; she detested them all.

Apparently, she hated all but one.

She brushed her hair aside, revealing a dazzling necklace with at least a dozen gems encrusted along the chain, a diamond the size of Sirius’ fist dangling on her chest. It was horribly ugly and weighed Cordelia’s shoulders down considerably.

“Where did you get that?” Sirius asked, squinting his eyes at the way the light exploded off the multi-faceted surface.

“Severus,” Cordelia answered condescendingly, relishing in the way Sirius’ face screwed up. “He gave it to me this morning while you were off…drinking? Seems a bit early, no?” She passed her hand through the air, pushing Sirius’ gin-tainted breath away from her.

“Don’t you think it’s a little suspicious to wear a necklace a man – who isn’t your fiancé – gave you?”

“It’s probably the least suspicious thing you should worry about right now,” Cordelia challenged, biting into another grape. Her maliciousness had faded, though, leaving her eyes downcast and glassy, a stiff porcelain doll with a thin crack crawling over her cheeks.

Sirius stalked out of the room, fighting the urge to slam the door behind him, and sat on the edge of his bed, head in his hands. It wasn’t the necklace that bothered Sirius; it was the blatant sabotage. Snape loved Cordelia. Really, truly loved her. Not like Sirius, who only pretended he could. He didn’t want Cordelia, but selfishly, he didn’t want Snape to have her, either. And now, it seemed like even Cordelia didn’t know whether to hate Sirius or love him, and that made him feel like shit, too.

“I think Snape saw you on the B-deck,” a voice said behind him. Regulus spoke quietly, in case the mahogany walls grew ears. "I just heard him slam his door and mumble something about steerage."

“I know,” Sirius conceded.

“He’ll look for anything to break your engagement and prove he’s the better choice for the Slytherins,” Regulus cautioned. 

“Just say it, Reg,” Sirius urged, not willing to sit through another lecture. He knew where Regulus was going. Regulus knew that Sirius knew, but tiptoed carefully.

“You need to be smart. You’re going to make yourself miserable.”

“I’m already miserable, what else do I have to lose?” Sirius nearly shouted, baring his teeth.

To his credit, Regulus didn’t even flinch. “You aren’t lost yet, Sirius. But don’t throw away the map.”

“Alright turn around,” Lily demanded, stepping back to admire her work.

Remus did as he was told, rotating around, watching a wide grin spread on Lily’s face. From the top bunk, even James was impressed, whistling.

“Damn, I’m good,” Lily nodded. She reached up to fix a stray curl, pushing it back with the rest. “No more touching your hair. It’s perfect.”

“You don’t think this is too tight?” Remus asked, feeling his suit stretch across the expanse of his back until it was taut under his jacket. He tried to shimmy his pants down a little to conceal his ankles.

James shook his head. “It’s a little snug, but I don’t think people will notice.”

“They’ll be too busy drinking wine and smoking,” Lily promised.

Remus ran a hand over his three-piece suit, a dashing black number that was a little wrinkled from sitting at the bottom of James’ duffle bag. It had been his uniform while working as a servant at the Evans’ estate, and, accordingly, had a brown mud stain near the bottom of the left pant leg from their hurried escape when Lily’s father caught them. At least a few inches taller than James, the suit wasn’t a perfect fit, but it was Remus’ only option if he wanted even the slightest chance of making it through this dinner. The dinner he was supposed to cancel, but couldn’t, too enraptured with the thought of seeing Sirius again.

“Can we go over the utensils again?” Remus asked, adjusting his cufflinks for the fourth time in the last two minutes. “There’s three forks, right? Salad, dinner, and dessert?”

Lily sat down on her bed, resting a hand on her belly. “Salad, fish, and dinner. The dessert fork is on top. The dinner knife is the long one, and the short one is for seafood. Your soup spoon is bigger than your dessert spoon, and your butter knife stays on the bread plate. Just work your way in from the outside. If you forget, just watch Sirius.”

Remus tried to keep track on his fingers, drawing a picture of the table in his head. “What about drinks? Am I supposed to drink in a certain order?”

“I would alternate. A sip of white, a sip of red, a sip of water, repeat. Don’t finish one before you start the other; that’s sloppy. And don’t forget to sit up. If your back isn’t hurting, you aren’t lifting your shoulders enough.” Lily instructed, demonstrating pin-straight posture. Remus cringed and rolled his shoulders around, trying to loosen up.

The watch he had also borrowed from James indicated that it was only ten past five, but then he remembered that the watch no longer kept the time and that he had just a few minutes to make his way to the clock tower before he was officially late for dinner.

Remus took a deep breath, shaking his arms out, hoping he would regain feeling before lifting a crystal wine glass to his lips that probably cost more than a month’s rent.

“Just remember, act like you have money, and you’re already in,” James suggested, flashing him a thumbs up. Lily squeezed his hand and encouraged him out the door.

“Good luck!” She whispered, kissing his cheek.

The first time Remus approached a polished crewmate blocking the entrance to the first-class deck, his palms started to sweat, and it took everything in him to not turn around and walk back to his cabin. Despite the crewmate’s leering glance, he did what James told him to do.

“Remus Lupin, here for dinner with Sirius Black,” he announced, tipping his nose higher in the air. James’ words echoed, _the more money, the higher the nose._

As Sirius had promised, the guard stepped away quickly, welcoming Remus onto the deck. The second time it worked, he found himself smiling as he followed a servant towards the grand parlor. Remus drank in the sight of the wealthy, at once surrounded by flowing gowns and delicate china and elegant décor, letting his fingers drag along the gold brushed walls and ornate busts balancing on pedestals.

“The parlor is right this way, Mr. Lupin,” the crewmate said, pointing him in the appropriate direction.

Remus bowed his head. “Thank you very much.”

He hesitated in the archway for just a moment, able to see the soles of a perfectly polished pair of shoes standing before the clock. Remus checked the lapels of his jacket, regarded his hair in the reflection of a glass window, and put one foot in front of the other.

Sirius’ suit was decidedly plain but undeniably magnificent, made of the finest silk and velvet, shimmering underneath the light pouring in from the glass dome above. He was leaning against the bannister casually, one foot crossed over the other, clearly not listening to whatever his fiancé was rambling about.

Remus climbed halfway up the stairs before he cleared his throat.

Sirius turned, a slow smile carving its way onto his face. Cordelia greeted him, though it took considerable effort for the corners of her lips to turn up.

“I like the bowtie,” he complimented, nodding at Remus’ ensemble.

“Thank you,” Remus blushed. He remembered his etiquette lesson with Lily and reached for Cordelia’s hand, pressing a delicate kiss to her knuckles when she gave it. “Pleasure to see you again, Ms. Slytherin.”

“This must be the hero of the hour,” a slimy voice hummed behind them. Lily had told Remus all about Severus Snape and his family’s failed venture with the Slytherins. He looked down his long, crooked nose at Remus with contemptuous eyes, his chest puffing out just enough to make him look like a strutting peacock.

Remus held out his hand, flashing him a confident smile. “Remus Lupin. Nice to meet you.”

Snape narrowed his eyes, suspicion creeping up his throat. “Severus Snape. I can’t wait to hear about your heroics over dinner. Shall we?” He wasn’t asking Remus. He was asking Cordelia.

She took his arm with a small frown, brushing a lock of long blonde hair over her shoulder, walking with a peculiar sway to her step that made her diamond necklace throw bombs of light onto the walls. Sirius watched them slink into the dining room, his face tight until he glanced at Remus.

“Welcome to Hell, Remus,” he smiled, patting his shoulder and urging him to fall in line beside him. “To your left, the satanic ice sculptures of death; they may look like dancing angels, but they’re really killer agents of the devil. On your right, you’ll find a lovely selection of poison, rumored to have been made from the blood of Jesus Christ himself. I’d recommend the red, personally. Gets you drunk faster. And right in front of you is where we’re about to burn for all eternity, surrounded by several of my dearest enemies.”

“It’s cozy in here,” Remus teased, straightening his shoulders until his spine grew sore. Sirius laughed, a beautiful, light sound, and pressed his hand to the small of Remus’ back, leading him to the table. Remus could have died right there and then.

Hanging onto Regulus’ arm, Walbura’s eyes swept up and down Remus with the highest degree of disdain before facetiously laughing at something Lockhart said. Sirius only pushed his fingers into Remus’ back harder, quietly relishing in the way Remus’ body reacted under his touch.

Sirius expected dinner to be a volatile affair. Even without the addition of a particular devilishly handsome nomad, dinner was a perfect battleground with a variety of weapons laid out before each combatant.

Without missing a beat, as soon as the first round of wine was poured, Walburga’s eyes found Remus, and Sirius’ toes curled. “I heard that the steerage accommodations are quite grand. Tell me, Mr. Lupin, how do you like your foie gras?”

“I prefer it on stale bread, but I’m willing to compromise with this fresh baguette,” Remus deadpanned. The table laughed, all but Snape and Walburga, who smiled thinly.

“What is it that you do for work?” Lockhart asked, no doubt looking for another sap to pawn his books on.

Remus sipped at his wine, delicately holding the flute between two fingers. “Whatever God tells me to do. Before boarding this fine ship, I manufactured sweaters with the Gladrag Company. Wonderful jumpers. They’d look great on you, Mr. Snape. I’ve worked in the mines, spent some time on the railroad, and tried my hand at blacksmithing until a horse clocked me pretty good.”

“He’s an artist,” Sirius added, ignoring Remus’ wide eyes and leaving Snape no room for a surely sour comment. “Mr. Lupin is a fantastic portraitist.”

Walburga leaned into the table closely, head tilted. “An artist? How wonderful. What museums are you in, Mr. Lupin? I would love to see your work.”

Sirius instantly regretted saying anything and tried to shoot Remus an apology across the table.

“I’m afraid I’m only in select private galleries, right now, Mrs. Black, but I’ll make sure to invite you if my work becomes public consumption,” Remus smiled politely, and Sirius nearly choked on his wine.

“Blacksmithing you say,” Snape mused, not about to miss a second opportunity, “is that how you earned all of those?” He pointed to Remus’ face and the exposed skin on his neck, covered in a myriad of old scars and jagged marks.

Remus tugged at the collar of his shirt, trying to hide away as discretely as possible. “I’ve got a nice mark on my hip from that old pony express, but no. These are just old battle wounds.”

“Who exactly were you battling?” Walburga moved her napkin aside as the waiters brought their first course of soup.

Sirius implored his mother to quit with the cruel games, but she ignored his stare.

“The worst version of myself,” Remus answered, swallowing his pride. When the faces around the table screwed up in quiet confusion, he continued. “No matter my job, nor the city I’m in, I don’t want to let the bad parts of the world influence how I go about my life. I can’t control everyone else, but I can control myself. I love waking up and not knowing what’s going to happen to me that day. Every morning, I get a chance to start fresh, be someone new. No matter what happens, I want to be the best me. How could I live with myself otherwise?”

“Well said, Mr. Lupin!” Lockhart applauded, not so secretly scribbling his words down on a pocket-sized notebook under the table.

The table concurred, though Snape scowled at the praise.

Sirius raised his glass of champagne in the air, just catching his mother’s boiling eyes from down the table. He didn’t pay any mind, and instead nodded at Remus, admiration burning his cheeks. “To the best of us.”

Remus and the lords and ladies around the table joined in on the toast. Sirius brought the glass to his lips, watching Remus swallow the fizzy drink, watching his pink lips form around the crystal, watching his throat bob as the liquid went down. Watching and waiting and wanting.

Cordelia dug her fingers into Sirius’ thigh, biting on her lip when even that wasn’t enough to draw his attention back to her, if she ever held it in the first place. Left without much choice, she leaned over and kissed his cheek, aware that Walburga’s hot gaze had fallen onto her. It was enough to get Sirius to blink and flash her a wavering grin.

“Mr. Andrews,” she cheered, abandoning Sirius and smiling across the table. “I hear that the Titanic is simply flying and we might dock in New York earlier than expected? Is this true?”

Clearly uncomfortable, Mr. Andrews adjusted the lapels of his jacket before moving into his soup for a distraction. He was rich, clearly – the man who designed the greatest ship in the world was deserving of some wealth – but where other aristocrats’ faces were etched with heavy oils and indignant lines, his was soft and gentle, a humble man who wasn’t afraid of his head of gray hair. “Yes, that’s right. The Captain has given the ship wings. I suppose I should have thought of that.”

The table laughed. Mr. Andrews didn’t quite fit in with their loud parades of affluence, but he made a noble effort, and it made Remus respect him deeply.

“It’s only too bad you couldn’t add more private deck space,” Cordelia sighed, relishing in the warm memories of sunbathing at her home estate.

“It’s a wonder we have as much as we do,” Mr. Andrews said as gently as possible. “The owner of the ship did away with several of the lifeboats to make for better strolling around the promenade.”

Snape waved him off. “A waste of space anyway, and so unbecoming of such a grand ship. Those boats are an insult to the great Titanic. An unsinkable beauty!”

Mr. Andrews only nodded, his shoulders slouching in disagreement.

“I think your ship is wonderful, Mr. Andrews. I’d love to see your other projects when we dock,” Sirius said wholeheartedly.

“Thank you, Mr. Black. It would be an honor.”

After the soup came the salad, and Sirius fell quiet for much of the rest of the meal. He picked at the leafy greens, uninterested, trying to hide his amusement as he watched Remus carefully select one fork and then exchange it for another before finally settling on the right utensil. It was a bore of a conversation, filled to the brim with fake laughter and cruel intensions. Snape didn’t care about vacations and humorous misadventures any more than Sirius cared about petty family politics, but it was an act they were used to playing.

By all accounts, Remus did well. Once Walburga conceded defeat in obliterating him from the table, she largely ignored his existence, save for a snide comment or two about the third-class rats or the musty smell floating around the table. On one occasion, he forgot which knife was for the fish, but a quick glance around solidified his decision. He noticed that Sirius wasn’t a fan of the three-glass rule that Lily had explicitly laid out. Rarely did Sirius ever slowly sip at his drinks; he preferred to throw them back like shots of vodka, much to Walburga’s disdain.

Remus tried his hardest not to look like a starved pig thrown into a silo of grain, but it was difficult to control his ravenous hunger. He had never had plate after plate of food placed before him, each more substantial and mouthwatering than the last. How long had it been since he had steak? He didn’t even know what chartreuse jelly was, but goddamnit if he’d ever be able to eat peaches without it again. The last course was dessert, and Remus nearly cried as the most beautiful assortment of chocolate and vanilla éclairs sat in front of him. They were oozing with filling, a little raspberry on top, and smelled of a warm kitchen and the finest sugar. With a twist in his already very full stomach, Remus realized it smelled like home.

When the plates had been cleared, Snape finished off his remaining wine glass – he followed Lily’s rule almost perfectly – and stood from the table, as did most of the other men.

“Shall we leave the ladies and head to the Smoking Room?” He suggested, as if he was the ringleader of the circus. “Mr. Lupin, are you joining us?”

Remus pretended not to see the flash of hope careening across Sirius’ face. “No, sir, I have to be getting back. Lots of festivities happening in steerage tonight.” He rounded the table and shook hands with the lords, dropping kisses on their wives’ hands like a true gentleman. When he reached Walburga, he faltered for just a moment before she begrudgingly offered her hand, not about to be the odd woman out. He just barely let his lips brush her skin before moving on to Cordelia, and finally Sirius.

“Thank you for the invitation, Mr. Black. I had a marvelous time,” he nodded, clasping their hands together.

Sirius’ brows furrowed when he felt the sharp prick of an object slide into his hand, but on Remus’ knowing eyes, he straightened himself out. “Of course. Thank you again for your assistance. Best of luck with your artistic endeavors.”

Remus left the dining room then, but not without a suspicious look over his shoulder before he rounded the corner and disappeared from Sirius’ view.

Retreating to the Smoking Room with the other men, Sirius rolled the ball of paper around in his pocket, his fingers burning against the secret note. His stomach churned just thinking about the words scrawled in his hand, but he couldn’t risk wandering eyes. He waited until after lighting his first cigar to excuse himself to the bathroom, dropping on his knees to make sure each stall was empty.

Sirius unraveled the note so quickly he nearly tore the paper. In the dim orange glow of the light above the sink, the words were unmistakable.

_To the best of us. Meet me at the clock._

He read the words five times over before he let himself smile. In the mirror, he fixed his hair, brushing back any stray strands before he was wholly dissatisfied and decided to redo his pony tail. Behind him, the door opened with a gentle squeak and Sirius watched Regulus through the mirror.

Regulus was three years younger than Sirius, but he wasn’t stupid. It was a universally known fact that Regulus was smarter than Sirius and he was much more suited to take on the role as the Black heir, but the stars had misaligned on the night Sirius was born, and so Regulus was entitled to little. He had seen the lingering glances and easy smiles – the kind Sirius certainly didn’t afford Cordelia – and he had felt the table vibrating with the erratic lurching of Sirius’ heart.

“I’ll cover for you,” Regulus said at once. Never known to linger, Regulus slipped out of the room, leaving a trail of smoke behind, the only evidence that Sirius hadn’t dreamt the whole thing.

Nodding in the mirror, Sirius steeled himself. He wanted this. He wanted him. He wanted everything. He had enough money to buy anything in the world, except for the one thing he desperately needed; time.

When Sirius approached the grand staircase, he balked as his stomach swirled into a swarm of butterflies and electricity shot through his veins. Remus was there, admiring the fascinating woodwork surrounding the magnificent clock, his jacket hanging open and the collar of his shirt unbuttoned. His hair was still swept back from his face, if but a little messy now, and though Sirius preferred the wild curls, something about this boy standing in a suit far too small for him lit Sirius’ body on fire.

He climbed the stairs quickly, taking two at a time before realizing how desperate it looked and relenting to stepping how any normal person would.

At the sound of his steps Remus turned around, unable to conceal the surprised grin on his face. What was more surprising? The fact that Sirius actually came, or that Sirius’ nerves touched his body like a million live wires, his lips faintly quivering with anticipation? He raised a single eyebrow at Sirius’ flushed cheeks.

“Do you want to go to a real party?”


	5. Part V

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @simplysirius for more fics, fanart, and sneak peeks! I also take requests :)   
> Part VI coming Friday, Nov 13!

Sirius heard it before he saw it.

The groan of an accordion and bellowing drums and a chorus of fiddles and stringed instruments that he didn’t even know the name of. Laughing and screaming and singing, glasses breaking and feet stomping rhythmically on the hardwood.

It was completely different than the music that accompanied their dinner; it was wild and erratic, vivacious and exhilarating. Walburga would surely find it barbaric, which made Sirius love it more. They hadn’t even descended the final set of stairs before a wall of smoke hit him, all cheap cigars and hand-rolled cigarettes. Sirius coughed, his lungs withering and his chest contracting violently.

“Can’t handle a little smoke?” Remus teased over his shoulder, making a show of flaring his nostrils and taking a deep breath.

Sirius shook his head, holding on tightly to the railing. The steps leading to the third-class deck were steeper and not quite as polished as he was used to, with puddles of water and rat droppings making for a slippery path. He also didn’t trust his knees to hold his weight as he followed Remus, taking full advantage of the opportunity to let his eyes wash over his hair, his broad shoulders, and the curve of his ass in his too-tight trousers. It made his toes curl and his mouth dry. A picture painted by the gods, most definitely.

“C’mon, we’re gonna miss the best part,” Remus urged, reaching back and taking Sirius’ hand into his own. The first thing Sirius noticed was how cold his skin was. The second, how rough his palms were. The third, how he never wanted to let go.

Remus dragged him faster down the stairs, and suddenly Sirius was dizzy with the feeling of another boy’s hand in his, the wine that he drank too fast, and the pounding of the drums that shook the walls. In his miserable twenty-two years of existence, he had never felt a room radiate so much warmth and liberty.

The staircase opened into a wide holding room, typically populated by a few wooden benches and ample space for the passengers to lay around or play football, now teeming with hundreds of dancing bodies falling into each other. The floor was slick with spilled beer and the air was so heavy with alcohol that Sirius felt drunk again. Beside him, Remus breathed it in, finding comfort in the chaos.

On the far side of the room, the band struck up a new tune, the fiddle leading off with the drums not far behind. They were a makeshift ensemble, strangers, evident in the way they bounced ideas off one another, finding the rhythm in each other’s chords and adding their own voice to the mix. Most were men, but one lone woman shredded her violin, curly hair spiraling around her as the music electrified her body.

Venturing further into the party, Remus stole two mugs of dark beer from a table and handed one to Sirius. They clinked mugs, and Sirius politely sipped before Remus extended one long finger and held the glass to his mouth, forcing more liquid down his throat.

“You aren’t allowed to drink like a rich prick in here,” Remus yelled over the music before downing half his pint in one go. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and smiled. “Loosen up a bit, yeah?”

Sirius half-heartedly tried shaking his arms out, tensing up nonetheless under the few wandering stares from the people around them.

Remus caught their eyes and batted them away. “Piss off.” They obliged only too quickly. He turned back to Sirius and gestured to his shirt. “Remember what we talked about? The top button?”

Sirius made quick work of his top button, deciding to get rid of the second and third too. Feeling the hot air on his chest, Sirius found the nerve to unbuckle his cufflinks as well, loosening his bowtie. In a swell of confidence, he removed his jacket, feeling his muscles expand as if he had been wearing a twenty-kilogram weight, and tossed it to a boy sitting near him.

“You’re never gonna get that jacket back,” Remus remarked, watching the boy, who couldn’t have been older than fourteen, slide the blazer over his arms.

“Good. I hated it. Is this better?” Sirius asked, presenting his body to be inspected.

Remus puckered his lips, his eyes drinking in the sight, and frowned. “Almost.” He took a step towards Sirius, closing the distance, and reached up to his face. Sirius flinched but regained his composure, curiously watching Remus as his hands advanced into his hair. In one fallow swoop, Remus tugged on the elastic, freeing Sirius’ hair from its ponytail and letting it cascade over his shoulders. “Now you’re a perfect steerage rat.”

It took Sirius a moment to remember how to breathe, what with Remus so close to him that his breath washed over his cheeks. They were almost forehead to forehead, nose to nose, and Sirius was only terribly aware that their lips were mere inches apart. It only made the alcohol pulsing through his body burn hotter.

Stepping back, Remus shed his own jacket and mussed his hair, freeing the curls from whatever kind of gel that Lily had plastered over his head, though he made sure to conceal James’ blazer underneath a bench for safe keeping. He tried not to stare, but Sirius managed to watch just out of the corner of his eye, feigning interest in the dancers swinging each other around in front of the band. After another long pull from his beer, Remus nodded decisively.

“Ready to dance?”

“I don’t dance,” Sirius lied. He had taken dance lessons since he was five, and only recently gave them up after his mother decided that studying for his Cambridge entry exams was more important than knowing how to avoid stepping on a woman’s stupidly large ball gown as he pulled her around in tiring circles.

Remus just looked at him, seeing right through the lie. “Yes, you do.”

Sirius huffed, “I mean, I don’t dance like this. I don’t know how.”

“Neither do I,” Remus shrugged, rolling up his sleeves. “Now c’mon.”

Still, Sirius refused, parking himself in a small spot on a bench, nestling himself between a man who was already passed out and a young girl whose short legs were swinging out of time with the beat of the drums.

“Would you like to dance with me?” Remus asked her, holding his hand out.

Instantly, the young girl’s face lit up and she jumped off the bench, taking hold of Remus’ hands. Together, they swirled and jumped and shimmied to the music, dancing until they were out of breath. Remus twirled her under his arms, gently dipping her back and bouncing her right back up on her feet not a moment later. Not quite able to keep pace with the grown-ups, Remus placed the girl on his feet, whisking them around the room as one line dance bled into another.

Sirius clapped along, and he couldn’t help but smile watching Remus and the girl tear around the floor. He lost sight of them a few times, but took the opportunity to nurse his beer and stretch out the knots in the muscles along his neck. Though it was slightly stale and heavy on the wheat, Sirius couldn’t remember the last time he had a good, cheap beer, so he relished the sloppy taste on his refined tongue.

“Enjoying the party?” A young woman asked, perching beside him with a glass of water in her hand. Sirius eyed her round belly, but his gaze settled on her face, dotted with freckles and punctuated by viridescent eyes; it was a face not forgotten easily, especially when it was staring so curiously at him.

“Evans,” Sirius said suddenly, struggling to remember her first name. A flower. Rose? She had glowing red hair, so Rose would only make sense, but he knew it wasn’t right.

He must have been squinting because girl only laughed. “I’ll give you credit for remembering the last name, though, technically, I’m disinherited and married, so Lily Potter works well enough.”

“Sorry,” he apologized. Sirius vaguely remembered a meeting in the stateroom one November day when news broke around England that the eldest Evans daughter was no longer a going concern, and all attention and marriage efforts should be directed to her bastard sister Petunia. Walburga had scoffed at the mere idea of arranging Regulus with such an unworthy partner, even if it would give the Black family a slice of the Northern Railroad Company. She figured he could fetch a bigger strategic advantage than that.

Sirius had met Lily Evans a few times prior to her being disowned. She never fit in with her family; between her outspoken, resentful sister and her unimpressed father who got along quite well with Walburga, she was far too content with finding her own way in life with a smile on her face.

“I heard you treated Remus to a night in hell,” she said, arching an eyebrow. She could just see Remus and the young girl skirting along the crowd, lost in some skipping line dance. “He didn’t burn up, did he?”

“You know Remus?”

“He’s our bunkmate. James already wants to make him the godfather,” she grinned, one hand absentmindedly finding her baby bump as she cast a look over her shoulder. James was locked in a fierce drunken football contest with some other stumbling men, handily winning each goal.

Sirius shook his head. “He made it out alive, which is better than I thought he’d end up.”

Lily sat back on the bench. “I always did love your mother’s hospitality. How’s Regulus?”

“He’s Regulus,” Sirius shrugged, which seemed to tell Lily all she needed. His eyes wandered back to her stomach. “Does your father know?”

“No. And he’s not going to,” Lily said indignantly. “If I’m disinherited, he doesn’t have any claim over my life anymore. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, really. James and the baby are like the prize for playing his stupid games for so long.”

Understanding all too well, Sirius just nodded along, wishing so badly to have that kind of freedom. His chest ached if he thought about it for too long. He downed the last of his beer in the meantime.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got rid of your shackles and chains, have you?” Lily mused, rubbing the fabric of Sirius’ shirt between her fingers. She seemed wistful, reminiscing about her old life, not missing it, but still just a little resentful. “I would have put money on you escaping before me.”

“I’m not drunk enough to have this conversation,” Sirius lamented, swirling around his empty mug.

Lily lifted her water glass. “Neither am I. You know, I was going to ask why you’re down here slumming it in the dungeons when you should be laying on a velvet chaise with your fiancé, but I already know the answer. This suits you much better.”

Before he could furrow his eyebrows and ask Lily what the hell she was talking about, and why she was suddenly smiling in Remus’ direction, James tapped her shoulder pulled her to her feet.

“May I have this dance, madam?” He swayed a little on his feet and his glasses sat crooked on his nose, but he was a ruggedly handsome man by most standards, a far cry from the prim and polished suitors that had followed the Evans family around like a pack of homeless dogs.

“I might not be much of a partner. Too much jumping and this baby is going to come out like scrambled eggs,” she grinned, taking James’ hand nonetheless and spinning into his arms as they folded into the crowd.

Sirius watched the passengers jig around the room, each in varying stages of a drunken stupor, and suddenly felt a pit in his stomach. These people had nothing. Nothing but the clothes on their backs and maybe a winter jacket if they were lucky. But they were happy. Their smiles took up an impressive real estate on their faces, and they danced with a spring in their step, ignoring their aching bones from working long days on their hands and knees. Maybe it was the music, maybe it was the beer, or maybe it was the novelty of standing on the greatest ship in the world, but these people were genuinely happy.

Sirius was well aware that his shoes alone cost more money than a third-class ticket to board the Titanic. He had more money than he could spend in five lifetimes, a better education than most every person in the room, and yet he dared to complain about how terrible his life was? It made him feel ill.

If these people could be happy with holes in their shoes, out of tune fiddles, and gallons of cheap beer sloshing in their mugs, then goddamnit, Sirius was going to be happy, too.

He weaved through the crowd, awkwardly swaying to the music and crookedly smiling at other passengers as he nudged his way to the far side of the room where Remus had the young girl propped up on his hip, spinning her round and round. Sirius leaned against a wooden beam, letting the admiration boil in his stomach and crawl up his throat, laughing and clapping along with the music. He felt his shoulders fall and his muscles unravel, the weight of his wretched name slowly slipping away.

Remus heard the slightly offbeat clapping and looked up, his smile growing only wider as he took in Sirius propped against the post, staring at him with an unmistakable gleam in his eye.

“Do you mind if I dance with him now?” Remus asked the young girl in his arms. She looked at Sirius and pouted, crossing her arms on her chest. Remus poked her nose, coaxing a smile. “You’re still my favorite, Alice.” He set her on the floor and reached for Sirius’ hand.

Sirius glanced around the room with his lip tugged harshly between his teeth, suddenly afraid of crude comments and hundreds of wandering eyes. Remus stepped up to him, taking gentle hold of his wrist, startling him.

“No one cares,” Remus promised, thumb brushing over Sirius’ fingers, white knuckles clenched around his biceps. “At least, not here.”

“I still don’t know the steps,” Sirius admitted lamely, though the more he watched the party rage on, he realized that nobody knew any of the steps. There was no manual that taught how to let music flow through the body, no fancy class to shut off the brain and allow the heart to take the reins. Sirius wasn’t sure if his brain came with such a switch; maybe he was a defective human model.

Remus shrugged, pulling him off the beam and into the crowd. There was a brief lull in the music, just long enough for the musicians to throw back a shot and cringe at the aftertaste, before they struck up a new song. The bagpipes took the lead, accompanied by a swell of thundering drums.

The passengers responded accordingly, finding partners and galloping around the room, hands on shoulders, fingers on hips, feet hardly ever touching the floor. Couples sauntered past Remus and Sirius, standing far too still for such an upbeat song. James caught Remus’ eye, wiggling his brows at the sight of Sirius, and flashed him a wild thumbs up.

Sirius delicately put one hand on the crook of Remus’ neck, just a feather-light, barely-there touch that made Remus selfishly crave for more. His other hand hovered near Remus’ waist, not quite able to free himself from his chains completely, as hard as he thrashed against them. Without missing a beat, Remus took Sirius’ hand in his instead, wrapping his free arm around the waistband of Sirius’ trousers and pulling their bodies close together.

“We have to be closer,” Remus explained, suddenly breathless at the feeling of his chest against Sirius’, their knees knocking into one another, their hips pressing together. “I thought you knew how to dance?”

Sirius swallowed thickly, trying not to look down at how his body fit perfectly into Remus’. “I do. Ballroom dancing is a little more … tame than this.”

“Tame is boring,” Remus teased, and rose on the balls of his feet, encouraging Sirius into a bouncing little dance as they rotated in a bumbling circle. It wasn’t pretty, nor was it particularly coordinated or on beat, but they were skipping together, learning how to move as one, and Sirius was sure that his face would hurt at the end of the night from smiling so much.

Bumping into people around them, Remus tried to apologize, but his words were cut off by laughter and Sirius’ shrieking, unable to contain his overwhelming joy. Remus thought that it was like watching a child discover snow for the first time, all screaming innocence and unbridled excitement. Sirius had traveled to foreign countries, ate the finest foods, and slept in the most exquisite manors, but had he really lived at all?

When they found their confidence, their steps got quicker, their jumps higher, their circles wider, until the whole room was watching them careen around, urging them on. It almost made Sirius stop dancing on a dime, thinking their eyes were focused on the two boys stumbling around a room, bodies so close together you couldn’t slip a single dollar in between them. But these people were cheering for two boys who were having the time of their lives; they were cheering for Sirius because he was someone to root for, not because he was Sirius Black, someone to fear, and god, did it feel good.

In the open space beside them, Lily and James pranced around, swinging by their arms, effortlessly changing direction while keeping their eyes trained on each other. James was careful not to step on Lily’s skirt, and even more watchful of her small bump, fiercely protecting her from losing her balance or stumbling into the crowd. It was something of a court dance, Sirius realized, with the elegant hands held in the air and the intense stares, infused with a drunken Irish jig found only in the pubs off the beaten path.

Remus untangled their limbs and held Sirius out to the side, motioning to the fiddle player to strike up his own tune. At his command, the bagpipes stalled, allowing the fiddler to pluck away at her strings.

With a dramatic poker face, Remus tapped away on his feet, hopping around like an Irish leprechaun on St. Patrick’s Day, surefooted in the wild dance. Remus hadn’t spent long in Ireland, but he had visited his fair share of pubs and learned a thing or two from the young women nursing their third cocktail.

Sirius grinned, thoroughly impressed, and couldn’t help but wonder if more than a decade of ballroom lessons would make for an interesting competition. He cleared his throat and pointed to the fiddler, who was only too happy to oblige. With a taunting finger, Sirius flicked Remus’ chest, moving him over a few paces to let the master work. Remus nodded, gesturing to the floor, and crossed his arms on his chest, hungry eyes seizing up his prey.

He might not know how to jig, but goddamnit could Sirius Black waltz, even without a partner. His strides were flowing and calculated, tension in his neck as he straightened his spine but an easy, lolling smile crafted just for Remus glued on his face. Sirius circled the open area, all pointed toes and strong arms, pulling the audience in with his slender, outstretched fingers, and then blowing them back with an airy leap that made his hair swirl around his face, a few stray strands catching on his nose.

Remus took the opportunity to brush his face clear before cueing the fiddler again. He tried a faster jig this time, kicking at the floorboards and thrusting himself higher into the air. If he thought too much about it, Remus lost the rhythm, but that was, perhaps, what Remus loved most about dancing. He wasn’t allowed to think. In the moment, he was just Remus, dancing beside Sirius, a boy who was staring at him with such intensity it made Remus’ brain short-circuit.

Sirius tried to imitate him this time, clearly failing to get the hang of the jig and surely scuffing the hell out of his shoes, but not caring in the least. He took Remus’ hands and led him around the dance floor, mixing together a few waltzing steps in between lively Irish hops. Remus had never been very coordinated, so he stumbled around in his haste to keep up, but Sirius was more than willing to catch him with sturdy arms.

“I’m going to pass out,” Remus panted, his knees growing sore and his lungs gasping for breath.

“Me too,” Sirius said, falling onto the nearest bench and hanging his head over the back. Remus sat beside him, wiping away the sweat that matted his curls to his forehead, and took the opportunity to look at Sirius’ body, a light sheen covering his tan skin. Remus watched his Adam’s apple dip as Sirius swallowed, trying to catch his breath, and found himself wanting to kiss it. He immediately tossed the thought in the nearest garbage bin and tried to straighten his shit out.

“You two look like you need these!” James exclaimed, dragging Lily over with three beers clutched to his chest. He distributed them to Sirius and Remus.

Sirius saluted James and tipped his mug back. Remus only sipped, knowing he’d only wake up in the morning with his head in the toilet if he drank any more.

“You were giving us a run for our money,” Remus complimented.

Lily shook her head. “You should see me when I’m not carrying a tiny little human. I could kick Black’s ass any day.”

Sirius arched one eyebrow. “Bold statement, Evans. I seem to recall winning that ballroom competition by a healthy margin.”

“Yeah, when you were ten,” Lily waved off. “When this kid pops out, we’ll just have to have a rematch.” Lily clinked her water glass with Sirius’ mug.

“Do you have a name picked out?” Remus asked, feeling a little left out of the conversation. Oh, what he would do to see ten-year-old Sirius waltzing around in a magnificent ballroom with a fancy little suit.

James nodded emphatically, ignoring Lily’s rolling eyes. “James Jr., if it’s a boy, and Lily Jr., if it’s a girl.”

“We haven’t decided,” Lily insisted, prompting James to launch into a grand soliloquy on exactly why their child needed to be named after them. Reasons were nothing short of, _it would be cool to have a mini-me_ , to _we have to give our son a name like James Jr. so he has a strong role model to look up to!_ Lily wasn’t buying it, Remus just laughed, and Sirius suggested even more awful names like _Myrtle_ and _Wolfgang_.

At the end of the night, after Lily and James had retired to their cabin and the musicians had put aside their instruments to have at the last of the beer, Remus had one arm wrapped around Sirius’ waist, though it wasn’t in the way he had spent the past five hours imagining.

Sirius Black was, in no uncertain terms, shitfaced.

His eyes were hooded, a deep flush painted on his cheeks, and he spent more time tripping over his words and mumbling something about caviar than he did trying to remember how to work his feet. Remus knew his family was staying in the most expensive suite on the ship, just down the hall from the A-deck, but he briefly considered keeping Sirius in his lowly steerage cabin for the night instead. Delivering the Black heir to his room plastered out of his mind and unable to string together a coherent thought would most definitely get him thrown into the ocean with an anchor tied around his foot.

Together, they stumbled through the empty hallways, most normal passengers fast asleep by now, easily avoiding patrolling crewmen as they passed; no one wanted to be around when Sirius entered the throwing-up phase of his drunken misadventures.

“Thisss was vury funnn Reeeeemus,” Sirius trilled, giggling as they tripped into a wall.

Remus tightened his grip on Sirius and pressed on, failing to suppress his smile. “I’m glad I could take you to a real party.”

“Let’s goooooo again.”

“I don’t think so,” Remus frowned, suddenly realizing that not only was their night ending, but their relationship – or whatever you wanted to call this strange confluence of luck – was ending. As soon as Sirius was safely in his room, Remus had been successfully repaid for his heroic efforts and he no longer had a reason to linger. Remus’ steps slowed, now in no rush to deliver Sirius, but the door was already in sight. “You have to go back to your room.”

“No fair,” Sirius pouted, “I want to see you again. Pleeeeeeeease.”

Remus tried to tell himself that it was just the alcohol talking, but he still felt lightning shooting through his fingers and gathering below the waistband of his trousers. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Sirius’ face lit up. “Promise?”

“Promise,” Remus nodded weakly.

Sirius pulled out of Remus’ grip, teetering under his own weight before he regained his balance. In one swift step, Sirius was in front of Remus, so close that his warm breath washed over Remus’ cheeks and the beer on his tongue swallowed him whole.

Remus’ body fell numb, his heart beating so hard he could hear it echo in his ears. He was not a master of romantic exploits, but he knew what came next, and he wanted it in the worst way. Eyes blown wide as Sirius nestled his fingers in golden curls, caressing his scalp and encouraging his head forward to meet him in the middle, Remus held his breath.

There was a flash in Sirius’ eyes, a brilliant blue that was stone cold sober. Sirius was drunk, but this wasn’t some fleeting drunken whim that he would regret in the morning. On the contrary, Sirius was sure that if he didn’t do it, regret would hit him like a cannonball to the gut.

He leaned in, watching Remus carefully, waiting for a bewildered leer or a staggering cry for help, but the man remained quiet, waiting for Sirius to close the space between them. Sirius could just feel the tiniest prick of new stubble growing against his lips, and steeled himself for a bruising kiss.

Beside them, the door opened, and suddenly Remus and Sirius were face to face with Regulus, face ashen and drooping, clearly fighting a losing battle against sleep. He looked between Sirius and Remus with placid eyes.

Remus stumbled backwards, as if the distance would distract from the fact that he was almost caught kissing Sirius Black, and he was about to lose his life for it.

Sirius registered Remus moving away, but it was Regulus he watched carefully, waiting for a reaction.

Regulus said nothing. Instead, he glanced down either end of the hallway, ushered Sirius into the room, and closed the door.


	6. Part VI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @simplysirius for sneak peaks, more fics, and fanart! I also take requests :)  
> Part VII coming Monday Nov. 16!

As it turns out, almost kissing someone results in a spectacular hangover.

Sirius’ eyelids stuck to together the next morning, and it took a considerable effort to so much as blink, let alone sit up in bed. He woke up disoriented, half expecting to be keeled over a bench in the third-class holding area, sitting in a puddle of his own piss with the remains of his dinner spewed over his shirt. He had little recollection of making it to his own bed, trying to sort through the beer-tainted memories without luck. It sure smelled like he was still in a bar, though, as he glanced around the room, there was no alcohol in sight. That was probably a good thing.

Realizing he fell asleep in his dress clothes, Sirius peeled off his shirt and tossed it in the general direction of the bathroom, his head throbbing too violently to warrant walking over there. Sirius had never been this hungover in his life, but he suspected that he was still drunk and hadn’t even crossed the threshold to hungover yet. He lay back on the bed, letting the soft pillows envelope him, and rubbed at his face, trying to wipe some of the grime off. His hands froze over his lips, fingers pressing on the chapped skin.

Sirius didn’t remember how many pints of beer he drank, nor did he know how he made it back to his room in one piece, but he did remember standing outside his door, chest pressing against chest, hands roaming in soft curls, lips crawling closer and closer together. He didn’t kiss Remus. At least, he didn’t think he did. Oh god, what if he couldn’t remember their first kiss? But wait, a first kiss implies a second kiss, and a second a third, and holy shit his head was spinning so fast Sirius leaned over the side of the bed and threw up.

He choked on the bile, coughing and spitting out chunks of vomit, wiping his mouth on the back of his arm when he thought he was finished.

“Holy fuck,” Sirius whispered to himself, doubling over and clutching his head in his hands. If he didn’t figure this out, he was going to implode.

Fact number one: Sirius got drunk off his ass with Remus last night, and he loved it. He loved the taste of cheap beer shooting down his throat, burning his stomach and blurring his vision. Things were so much easier to look at when they weren’t clearly in focus. He loved the freedom coursing through his veins in time with the lively fiddle, losing control of his body and for once, not fighting to get it back.

Fact number two: Sirius danced with Remus, and he loved it. Remus was nothing like the stuffy, prim ballroom dance partners he had in the past. He was wild and uncouth, smiling when he made a mistake, laughing when they fell to pieces against the rhythm of the drums.

Fact number three: Sirius touched Remus, and he loved it. His hands ached as they remembered the feeling of Remus’ skin, hardened from years of tough labor and calloused from countless hours spent holding stalks of charcoal against paper. If he closed his eyes and stilled his breathing, Sirius could still feel Remus’ breath coming down in hard pants against his cheek, his tongue smelling of chocolate and wine from their dinner.

Fact number four: Sirius almost kissed Remus, and knew, with a sickening twist of his stomach, that he would have loved it. He had thought about it all night. All day and all night, really. From the moment Remus approached him on the B-deck, all Sirius could think about was his lips, so softly pink and puckered just right. At dinner, Sirius watched those lips suck on his soup spoon, part over wine glasses, and collect chocolate filling in one corner. If he wouldn’t have been quite literally murdered by Cordelia, Snape, and his mother, Sirius would have stalked across the table and kissed Remus right there and then. From what he could remember, he didn’t kiss him in front of the door, either. But he wanted to. He made himself sick with wanting and even now, he held a hand to his mouth to keep from losing more of his stomach to the floor.

Sirius had a fiancé. Sirius was going to marry Cordelia. Sirius’ life was planned out for him. This was not in the plan. This wasn’t even in plan B or C or D. This was a catastrophe.

The thought of avoiding Remus for the rest of this bloody trip was god awful. The thought of seeing Remus again and having to resist touching him was almost unbearable.

He didn’t have long to figure out which option would be best. Without knocking, the adjoining room to his apartment opened with such force that it slammed back against the wall before the intruder shut it forcefully behind them. Sirius didn’t move. Maybe if he stayed completely still, his mother wouldn’t see him.

“Get up,” Walburga demanded, the aggression in her voice not to be confused with tough love.

Sirius sat straighter but made no move to rise from the bed, eyeing the yellow-gray sloppy mess on the floor, not trusting his knees to hold his weight. “Good morning, Mother,” he said delicately, his voice still scratchy from all the alcohol.

Walburga narrowed her eyes, her nose twisting in disgust as she took in the full extent of Sirius’ disorderly conduct. “Do you think this is a joke?”

Sirius stiffened. He had made Walburga angry on more days than he could count – it was one of his favorite pastimes, really – but rarely had he ever heard her voice so terribly even, as if she was approaching new levels of anger that Charles Darwin had yet to discover. Staying silent, as was Sirius’ usual game plan, was no longer an option.

“No,” he said solemnly, bursting into another fit of coughs as he fought back the urge to vomit again. “Of course, not.”

“Would you like to explain to me what you do think this is then? Clearly you’ve forgotten.”

He shook his head. “I haven’t forgotten. I’m getting married–”

“Yes, and do you know why you’re getting married?” Walburga hissed, slithering closer to the bed with every word. Sirius felt himself shrinking under her gaze. “Our family will collapse without this marriage; do you understand me? Your father took our money to the grave with him and left us with nothing but old debts and bad business. You will marry this girl, you will smile for the photos and shake all their hands, and you will use their money to ensure that we can continue to live long, successful lives.”

He had heard the proposition plenty of times, finding a new part of the contract to gripe over with every iteration. Sirius had never agreed to any of this – vehemently refusing and threatening lethal recourse was more like it – but his name had been written on the dotted line in a hand that was not his own. Before, he never had a reason to reject the marriage other than on the grounds of not wanting to get married at all. Now, he wondered how hard his mother would switch him if he told her he didn’t want to get married because, perhaps a bit irrationally, he wanted to marry a third-class passenger with whom he had met not three days ago.

Instead, he gamely nodded, bowing his head. “I understand.”

Walburga peered down her slender nose at her son with all the ferocity of a snake before it strikes. “You’re forbidden to see that boy again.”

Sirius’ head snapped up so fast the world spun, and he reeled for just a second before clutching his stomach and puking over the side of the bed again.

Walburga watched, uninterested, folding her arms delicately over her torso, a small ounce of satisfaction flickering in her glacial eyes. When Sirius finished wrenching, her heels clicked on the hardwood as she crossed to the closet, holding up a fresh button down and a pair of embroidered suspenders attached to a truly ugly pair of tan pants. The outfit lay at the foot of Sirius’ bed, far away from the sticky mess beside him.

“Breakfast is on the promenade,” Walburga informed, gesturing to the door leading to their private deck. She turned on her heel, hand on the doorknob, and gave Sirius another once over, no doubt wishing now more than ever that she only bore one son.

“I’m not hungry,” Sirius mumbled, licking at his lips to get the taste of bile off his tongue.

“Breakfast is on the promenade,” she repeated again, commanding this time. Walburga left the room with a prompt slam of the door, rattling the decorative vases sitting on top of the fireplace.

Sirius flopped back into his sea of pillows. When he closed his eyes, instead of a blissful dark abyss, warm honey irises stared back at him with a smile so warm he felt his cheeks heating again. Fuck.

Breakfast might have been on the promenade, but Sirius’ first order of business was washing away the layers of dried alcohol and sweat off his skin. When he felt steady enough on his feet, Sirius made his way to the bathroom, running himself a searing shower. He enjoyed standing under the scalding water, watching his skin turn pink beneath the steam; it hurt, but at least he felt something that let him know he was alive, even if it felt like he had died inside.

He emerged from his bedroom sometime later, strolling onto the promenade like he hadn’t kept Cordelia waiting for the better part of an hour. She sat at a square table, gazing at the endless ocean on a cloudy day, hands folded delicately in her lap, looking every bit like a painting belonging in Buckingham Palace. Cordelia was unwaveringly regal, from the set of her jaw to the way her shoulders carried her high collared gown. There was no question that she would make for an excellent Black heiress.

Sirius sat in the empty chair beside her, keeping a safe distance from the food in front of him. The last thing he needed to do was ruin Cordelia’s dress. After the stern conversation with Walburga, Sirius was expecting an equally vitriolic response from his fiancée, but Cordelia seemed almost too concerned with ignoring Sirius for as long as possible.

The crash of the waves and the seagulls crying above would have been a welcomed sound to Sirius, if the silence seeping from the other side of the table wasn’t so suffocating. He squirmed in his chair, leaning up to try to see Cordelia’s face.

“Good morning,” he greeted slowly, hands braced in front of him should he find any of the porcelain plates thrown in his direction.

His voice, however rough as it may have been, seemed to startle Cordelia from her repose. She rose from her seat swiftly and rounded the table, hauling one leg over Sirius’ and settling in his lap. Before he had time to react, Cordelia’s lips were on his, urgent and messy like never before. She must have tasted the previous night on Sirius’ tongue but she paid it no mind, knotting her fingers in his hair and pressing herself harder against him, a desperate plea for love.

Beneath her, Sirius was frozen, hands firmly gripping the arms of her chair, kissing her back politely with not even a fraction of her passion. He was confused, but more than that, he had never been surer that he did not love this girl.

Cordelia’s lips broke from his for just a moment before attaching to his jaw, kissing down his neck and pushing aside his shirt to concentrate on the dip of his collarbone. It was a little sloppy, with too much teeth and saliva, but her endeavor was a success. When she pulled away from Sirius’ skin, panting and out of breath, a faint purple mark blossomed at the base of his neck.

Sirius pulled his head back as far as he could to look at her – really look at her – and figure out what the fuck was happening.

Cordelia looked down at him, frowning, her eyebrows knitted closely together, front teeth buried in her bottom lip. She swallowed, steadying her voice.

“You’re mine. Only mine,” Cordelia insisted without a hint of aggression. With a punch to his gut, he realized that she was terribly desolate, nervous even. Her eyes shown with naked fear, afraid, perhaps, of not only being made a fool, but of her fiancé abandoning her, forced to navigate the world alone.

It must have made Cordelia terribly insecure, nearly losing her fiancé to a third-class pauper in the span of just a few hours. Her blood must have been burning with jealousy that Sirius had chosen someone over her, someone without money or titles or a huge oil business riding on their back. By all calculations, Cordelia should have been uncontrollably irate. But she wasn’t.

Sitting on Sirius’ lap was the shell of the woman he knew, dwarfed by her fear of being alone, desperately clinging on to a quickly sinking ship. Perhaps he didn’t really know her at all.

Instead of telling her how he really felt, Sirius let his hands caress her legs. “I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t a lie, and from the relief that slowly spread across her face, Cordelia knew it, too. She twisted around, reaching for a small box on the table, and presented it to Sirius. “I was going to give you this after the wedding. I want you to have it now.”

Sirius took the box, knowing full well what was inside. There are few things that can fit in such a small, square container, no larger than the palm of his hand. He had a sinking feeling that the box did not contain the keys to a new car or a fabulous set of cufflinks that he had no need for.

To her credit, the ring was beautiful. A simple gold band, polished to perfection and sized just right, shined in the bright sunlight amidst the bed of black foam that held it in place. It was plain and simple, save for the engraving on the top; _S.B._ , written in slanted, looping hand, made for only one man. It was supposed to be his wedding band, Sirius assumed, but it was not lost on him that Cordelia was giving it to him now, not so the world knew he was taken, but so one single man knew he was off limits.

“I love you,” Cordelia said, helping slide the ring down Sirius’ finger. She tried to read his face, waiting for a response.

Sirius leaned in and kissed her hard on the mouth, pointedly avoiding saying the words but feeling her smile under his lips nonetheless.

Hours Remus had slept that night: zero.

Number of times he touched his lips, wondering what Sirius would taste like: thirty-seven.

Cups of coffee he drank in the morning: four.

Sketches of Sirius’ face, attempting to capture his wild smile and that mischievous gleam in his eye: sixty-two.

Sketches crumbled into paper balls and thrown over the side of the rail into the ocean because Remus could never hope to capture all of Sirius’ vivacious splendor: sixty-two.

Make that sixty-three, now.

At this rate, Remus was going to run out of paper, left with nothing but a few dull nubs of charcoal rolling in his stained hand. Remus was determined not to think about Sirius, but the more he tried, the tighter his chest felt. It was like trying to hold your breath underwater, when your brain tells your body to hold on just a little longer, but your lungs are screaming for air and it’s easier to just take in a bit of water. Remus had taken in a bit of Sirius, but it was enough to overwhelm his body, filling his lungs, spilling into his bloodstream, settling around his brain, drowning him in blue eyes.

He was left gasping for more. More lingering touches. More wild dancing. More almost-kisses. More, more, more.

What a horrible thing it is to want more from somebody who doesn’t have anything to give.

Remus thought that sitting outside in the brisk air might cool off his burning body, but his heart still pounded in his chest, as if he had just jogged a hundred laps around the deck. He took a long drag of his cigarette and blew smoke into the air, glancing sideways at his most recent sketch of Sirius. The nose was too long, the mouth too wide, the eyes too dull. It would make for a great fire starter. 

At the sound of approaching footsteps, Remus collapsed over his sketchbook. As poor as the drawing was, it felt far too intimate for prying eyes.

“Relax, it’s just me,” James dismissed, rounding the corner. Remus had claimed a bench towards the front of the ship, where the wind was strongest and few people dared walk on such a bitter day. James sat beside him, drumming his hands on his legs, breath still smelling vaguely of stale beer. “You sober up pretty quick.”

“One of my many talents,” Remus said. Perhaps he could find a way to make money from that, seeing how the whole world-famous artist thing wasn’t panning out so well. “Where’s Lily?”

“Asleep. She kicked me out because I was making too much noise,” James answered, grimacing. Remus could believe it; James made his presence known in every room he occupied, be it from tapping his foot or whistling an off-key tune. He glanced around the empty deck. “Where’s Sirius?”

The question startled Remus, a bolt of lightning crawling up his spine so quickly he nearly snapped his charcoal stick in half. He felt his cheeks heating up again, and knew it wasn’t from the cold. “Why would he be here?”

James shrugged. “He seemed to enjoy himself last night.” If he only knew.

“He’s back in his world, I’m back in mine. I suspect that’s how it’s going to stay,” Remus said without much conviction.

Remus had thought about kissing Sirius for hours last night, rumbling through the possible consequences – a swift beheading, or a noble burial at sea; he’d be the first person to ever die on the Titanic, and that had to earn him at least a small section in the newspapers – but what really kept him awake was the thought of never seeing Sirius again. Never smelling his clean soap or watching the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled too wide. He had to stop thinking about it or his heart was going to burst.

“I suppose,” James conceded, not happy with the resolve. “He’s not what I expected him to be like.”

“What did you expect?”

James thought about it for a moment, unaware of how intently Remus was staring at him. “I met him once, I think, when his family visited Lily’s. He was younger, then, probably not more than sixteen. I just remember him looking so…angry the whole day. He sat at the table and refused to even look at me. I kind of thought he was an asshole.”

It didn’t surprise Remus. He thought of the look on Sirius’ face that night when he was perched on the rail, venomous eyes and bared teeth, trying to ward him away. What Remus hadn’t seen, he now realized, was Sirius’ tail tucked between his legs. He wasn’t a vicious wolf, ready to pounce, but rather a fox, cunning and timid, fending off attacks but leaving his blind spot wide open.

“His family has more money than god, of course he’s a bit of an asshole,” Remus said lightly, earning a hearty chuckle from James. “Why were the Blacks visiting Lily’s family?”

James’ lips puckered. “A marriage proposal.”

“What?” Remus gasped, unable to help himself.

“Lily’s father wanted to tie their households together. Walburga declined. There wasn’t enough in the deal for her. She figured the heir to their family deserved more than a couple railroads to his name.”

“Cordelia is a better business asset,” Remus mused.

“That witch of a blonde that with him? Pretty much.” James fell quiet, no doubt picturing just how different the circumstances might be if fate had twisted just a little differently. He snapped out of his thoughts quickly, slapping Remus on the back. “Well, it turned out pretty good for me, anyways. I got Lily, I got James Jr., and I got you. Not such a bad life.”

Remus hummed in agreement, but pursed his lips, rolling the question around on his tongue. “There’s no way that he could … escape, could he?”

James stole a fleeting glance at Remus, eyes brushing over his face with an unmistakable stroke of pity. He fumbled with his fingers, the answer already written on his forehead. “I don’t think he’d ever abdicate, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“But he could,” Remus insisted naively. “In theory, if he wanted to.”

“In theory, sure. He’d probably have just enough time to pick out the suit for his funeral before his mother killed him, though.”

Remus tried to detect an ounce of sarcasm, or at least a tiny smile, but it was nowhere to be found.

“You love him.”

“I just met him,” Remus denied, shaking his head quickly. “I don’t–”

James gently pulled at Remus’ sketchbook, unveiling the study of an eye so piercing and devious that it could only belong to Sirius. He took the liberty of turning the page, revealing an impressive array of lips, some a little pouted, others parted sensually, waiting to be touched.

“You’re an incredible artist,” James nodded, “but a terrible liar.”

Remus shifted uncomfortably, hanging his head over the back of the bench, squinting up at the sky and hoping for a lightning bolt to strike him dead. He suspected it would feel no different than when his eyes washed over Sirius.

“This might end in flames,” James warned, carefully brushing his finger over a delicate drawing of two hands intertwined, no telling where one started and the other ended. “But I do love roasting marshmallows.”

“What?”

James laughed. “Go get him. Make sure I’m there though when Walburga finds out. I want to see her face when she finds out the heir to her dynasty is running away with a steerage rat.”

“I can’t do that,” Remus lied. He had spent years slipping money when no one was looking; stealing a millionaire couldn’t be that much more difficult. He shared a knowing glance with James, who slung an arm around his shoulders and wiggled his eyebrows.

“What’s life without a little mischief?”

Sirius didn’t notice the drawings right away.

Cordelia had kept him occupied from the moment she gave him the ring, which now ensnared that one very important finger, insisting they learn more about each other and their new life together. She even fawned over Sirius’ art collection, asking him about the artists, the techniques, the stories within the strokes, holding onto his every word. Cordelia was really, truly, trying her best to keep Sirius within grasp, but satin slips between fingers far too easy, and Sirius was draped in it.

It wasn’t until he unearthed a cigar from the bedside drawer and lit a match did he finally see the discarded wads of paper.

“Would you mind going outside with that?” Cordelia asked, sitting in front of her boudoir with an array of powders and creams before her.

Dinner was to be a divine affair tonight, as if it wasn’t every night. Cordelia was more than excited to share a table with her favorite pianist, Augustine Hamilton. Sirius didn’t care much for his compositions, finding them far too loud and overzealous, but the vibrant melodies were enough to make Cordelia twirl on the tips of her toes. Since she heard the news during afternoon tea, Cordelia had spent the rest day in front of the mirror, asking Sirius every hour what color dress she should wear or how she should curl her hair. Sirius didn’t think Augustine cared what color lipstick she was wearing, but he suggested pink because he knew it would make her happy.

“Sorry,” Sirius apologized, making for the door to their private deck.

“That’s a horrid habit, you know. It could kill you.”

“I couldn’t get so lucky,” Sirius drawled, noting the twinge of frustration on Cordelia’s mouth. “It’s a joke.”

She smiled reluctantly, still uncomfortable with Sirius’ self-deprecating humor that always seemed to come at her expense.

Sirius slipped out the door and into the salty air, stopping in his tracks. His shoes shuffled through a fine layer of crumbled paper, at least a dozen or so scraps that had been haphazardly discarded. He glanced out over the railing but found no obvious culprit. A strong gust of wind carried a few of the wads back over the edge, falling away into the churning ocean below. Sirius reached down and collected what he could, stashing his cigar in the corner of his mouth, curiosity getting the best of him.

He smoothed the paper out over his thigh, choking on his own smoke as the lines became clearer. An eye here, a mouth there, the broad expanse of arms meeting strong shoulders on the next, each one more precise and detailed than the last. Some were a little crooked, or a stray line jarred through the picture, ruining the sketch, but they were beautiful.

They were also, undeniably, features that Sirius knew well, right down to the tiny scar on the corner of the lips. He had tripped over a mangled root of an overgrown tree when he was eleven, lashing his mouth against a thorny branch.

There comes a moment in every person’s life when, after just a single blink, everything becomes clear. Sirius had waited years. He wasn’t waiting any longer.

He folded the papers away quickly, brushing off any wispy ash, and buried them in the innermost pocket of his blazer. Sirius sucked on his cigar for all that it was worth, blowing thick clouds of smoke into the air, stoking the aching fire in his stomach, numbing the throbbing of his heart.

They arrived at dinner ten minutes early, Cordelia insisting that she couldn’t miss a single moment of being in Augustine’s presence. Sirius escorted her quietly, much to Walburga’s delight, successfully hiding his racing heartbeat under a tightly buttoned jacket. Snape stalked into the dining room, a smug smile quietly simpering on his face.

“Oh, Severus!” Cordelia fawned, forgetting Sirius completely and running as quickly as she could in her wobbling heels, swallowing the tall man in a tight embrace. She kissed his cheek, and Sirius’ face burned. “I can’t thank you enough for this, I really can’t! How on earth did you do it?”

Snape held Cordelia tightly to him, letting his touch linger as long as she would allow. “It was no trouble at all. Besides, I thought it might be a good learning experience for your fiancé. See a real pianist at work, right Sirius?”

Sirius smiled tightly. “I believe we have differing taste in music.”

Walburga stepped beside Sirius, placing a warning hand on the base of his neck. “I do so love Mr. Hamilton’s work. Shall we?”

Cordelia stayed hooked on Snape’s arm, chattering something about Augustine’s most recent concerto as she passed. Surrounded by so many people, Walburga let her nails scrape along Sirius’ skin as she headed towards the dining room. He didn’t move. Regulus sighed, wishing, for once, that his brother would do things the easy way.

“I’m not staying.”

“I figured.”

“I’ll be back.”

“I doubt it.”

Sirius laughed, clapping Regulus on the shoulder and running up the stairs, just as the clock chimed on the hour.

Remus watched the clouds float past the full moon, letting the cold air seep into his bones through the patchy holes in his shirt. At the sound of footsteps, he sat up, remembering all too well what happened the last time somebody ran past him on this bench. Except the person wasn’t running anymore. The night was silent as the body stopped in front of him, holding a short stack of papers in his hand.

He knew what it was before he took the paper from Sirius with shaking fingers. He didn’t bother looking at them.

“I threw them over the rail,” Remus mused, cringing with embarrassment. “How?”

“I don’t know,” Sirius said with an innocent shrug. “They must have blown in before they made it to the water. Maybe you just don’t have good aim.” It was a poor attempt at a joke; nothing could dispel the palpable tension in the air.

Sirius stepped closer, and Remus drew a sharp breath. He gingerly took one of the drawings out of Remus’ hand, brushing his thumb over the sketched eye. “I liked this one the best.”

“It’s crooked,” Remus choked. “And the lines are all broken.”

“Then it’s perfect,” Sirius whispered, crashing his lips into Remus’ in one wild, desperate motion, smashing their bodies together and clawing at golden curls. Remus came to life under his hands, fingers cupping Sirius’ neck, then his chin, then his cheeks, cold skin igniting against hot, touching so much but not enough. Sirius pressed up on the balls of his feet, stumbling a little into Remus’ chest, deepening the kiss, gasping into his mouth. Remus tasted of coffee and chocolate, sweet, but a little salty where the ocean air clung to his skin.

Remus held onto Sirius for dear life, letting his hands run down Sirius’ chest, over the strong muscles of his back, settling on his hips, wanting so badly to relieve the building pressure below his belt, but unwilling to break their lips apart.

Sirius whined as Remus licked into his mouth, eager to taste the whiskey and wine that still lingered on his tongue. It was better than he expected, more than he could have ever dreamed. It was frantic and dirty, neither knowing how much time they had but determined to use every second. It was breathless and dizzying, toe curling and electrifying. Sirius wanted more and Remus gave it all too willingly. Their hips pressed dangerously close together, and Remus prayed that he knees held his weight when he felt an unmistakable outline underneath Sirius’ trousers pressing into his thigh.

“Fuck, Sirius,” Remus breathed, hardly able to think straight, let alone put together a coherent sentence.

Sirius just hummed and pressed harder still, trying to relieve some pressure, too preoccupied to be embarrassed.

Somewhere off behind them, a heavy metal door slammed, echoing across the empty deck. It was enough to startle Sirius and send him stumbling backwards, instantly untangling his arms and legs from Remus.

They stood there a moment, chests heaving, hair disheveled, cheeks flushed, staring at each other. Remus licked his lips, wet with spit and swollen from the bruising kisses. Sirius clenched and unclenched his fingers, like he wasn’t quite sure he had really just touched Remus so intimately.

His face was seared in panic, jaw set tight, puffs of steam swirling into the air through parted lips in billowing waves. The fire burning in his stomach had spread through his body; the house was burning, and there was nothing stopping it from crashing to the ground.

Remus knew as soon as Sirius’ eyes met his. He knew it would hurt. Not like a punch in the face or a single stab wound. It was like taking a knife to his chest, cutting each fiber of his heart strand by strand, death by a thousand cuts.

“Please, don’t,” Remus begged, unable to raise his voice above a whisper.

Sirius shook his head, the only apology he could manage, and ran.


	7. Part VII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @simplysirius for sneak peaks, more fics, and fanart! I also take requests :)  
> Next part coming Wednesday Nov. 18! I hope you're ready for *that* scene.

Remus thought he would wake up with swollen eyes and a throbbing heart. He thought he’d spend the day in bed, clamping the pillow over his head to block out the world, burying himself in a coffin of blankets to avoid James’ prying remarks.

Remus wasn’t sad. Remus was furious.

As soon as his eyes opened, his heart raced. His hands shook and his jaw was sore from clenching. Remus tried to take his frustration out on his sketchpad, but it only resulted in several broken stalks of charcoal and a lot of scrapped paper. He had just a single page left before the sketchbook was full. When he couldn’t draw, he paced, and when he had circled cabin 121 enough times for his feet to mark up the floor, he roamed the ship, slinking down hallways and passing through empty rooms. Remus’ feet took him everywhere except the deck, not quite ready to face that damn bench yet.

Everything had fallen apart in a matter of seconds.

It was incredible, really, how fast everything happened. He was kissing Sirius – god, he was a fantastic kisser – and then Remus was watching him sprint back to the safety of first-class, a phantom in the dark night. The question gnawed at Remus; did Sirius run because he was scared, or because he regret it? No matter the answer, Remus refused to take it back. He’d do it all over again, but next time, he wouldn’t let Sirius go so quickly.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Lily asked, settling down beside him in the steerage holding room with a steaming bowl of porridge in front of her. She smeared a bit of jam on top, licking the extra off her fingers, and shrugged when Remus grimaced. “The baby wants what the baby wants.”

Remus pushed his scrambled eggs around the plate. “What’s there to talk about?”

“You. Him. Take your pick, both are equally interesting.”

“I’m boring. He’s not a going concern. Next,” Remus dismissed tightly, stabbing his eggs with no intention to eat them. Food hadn’t tasted the same since that fateful dinner with the Blacks, though he didn’t think that the sour tang twisting his mouth was from the lackluster third-class dining menu.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a bad liar?” Lily asked, peering over the rim of her cup of tea.

“I’m not the one lying!” Remus shouted loudly, ducking his head when the room quieted, a hundred eyes darting towards him. There were a few whispers, a couple shaking heads, but the passengers returned to their vivacious chatter soon enough, spoons clinking against mugs and hungover laughter bouncing off the walls.

Lily pursed her lips, aiming for diplomacy but bordering on partiality. “Sometimes lying is the only way to make it through that kind of life.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“I know that, Remus.” She churned her oats, looking for an answer in the bowl, and Remus waited for her to continue. “That kind of life, it’s just lie after lie. You lie about how much money you have, you lie about the success of your businesses, you lie about who you love. You lie and you lie until eventually you’re a stranger in your own life and there’s no telling where you started or where you’ll end up. Telling the truth isn’t an option. Honesty kills and deceit is fodder for the elite. It’s all one big game, really; whoever can tell the best lie wins.”

Remus shook his head, trying to understand. Somewhere in the deep recesses of his brain, he understood, and it splashed ice water on his burning skin. Could he truly hate Sirius for what he did? Was it fair? Of course, it wasn’t. Sirius had everything to lose. His title, his reputation, his life. Remus lost nothing but a few hours of sleep and a couple dozen sheets of paper.

“The sons and daughters of the highest aristocrats; we’re the best liars,” Lily insisted. She reached over and touched his shoulder gently. “He’s trapped in his family and he’ll always be trapped. He’ll marry Cordelia and make tiny little babies and swim in his millions. You don’t fit in that picture.”

“You were trapped,” Remus argued weakly, desperately clawing to keep Sirius in his life, no matter how angry it made him. “You escaped. You married James.”

Lily nodded, taking this into consideration with a small smile. Her hand traveled to her belly, a constant reminder of the life she left behind, and the life she was sailing towards. “That’s true.”

“How?”

“The truth?”

“The truth.”

“If you love someone enough, dying for them isn’t such a radical idea.”

James was only too excited when Remus approached him with the plan. It had taken zero convincing on Remus’ part to ask for his help, and the gleam in his eyes suggested he was quite familiar with instigating a riot.

“The first Titanic heist. We could end up on the front of the papers,” he smirked, matching Remus’ long stride as they made their way down the promenade. James tried out a couple different poses, one with his fists in the air, another solemnly serious and morose.

“Absolutely not. We can’t get caught,” Remus cautioned, nervously adjusting the buttons of his jacket. He wore James’ suit again, the picture of elegance, save for his hair, wild from his fingers constantly running through it, too nervous to keep from fidgeting. “Remember the plan?”

“Remus. I made the plan. I got it.”

“I made the plan. You just made it better,” Remus argued. At the base of the staircase leading to the first-class entrance, Remus hesitated, reaching for James’ arm before they climbed up to first class. “You’re sure they’ll be up here?”

James nodded emphatically, the confidence oozing out of him in thick waves. “Lily says the Blacks love afternoon tea. They’ll be there.”

Sirius hated morning tea. He didn’t particularly like tea in general, to be quite honest, but he found that holding his nose closed and downing the putrid liquid was an easy enough way to down a cup and get it over with. Cordelia liked hers milky white, which Sirius thought defeated the whole purpose of tea, but to each their own. Walburga hadn’t spoken to him all morning, which worked just as well for him, but, neither had Cordelia, which was, perhaps, even more concerning.

“Excuse me, can I interest you in a selection of fine chocolate?” A familiar voice chirped, a false sense of regality dripping from his mouth.

Sirius turned in his chair to see James, dashing smile not quite matching his tattered clothes, holding three chocolate bars in his hand, each a little melted and misshapen.

Walburga narrowed her eyes. “I believe you’re lost, sir.”

“No, no,” James dismissed, rounding the table. “Here, see, I have milk, dark, and … well I’m not sure what this one is, but I’m sure it tastes good.”

“This is absurd. I’ll have you removed from this deck immediately.”

James waved the chocolate bars in Sirius’ face, and, with his back to Walburga and Cordelia, winked. “These are world famous. Only the best from Gryffindor! There’s plenty more inside!”

“Guards! Guards, please escort this man back to his holdings!” Walburga called, waving over two shipmen who narrowed their eyes at James.

One officer pushed James away, the other pulling him by his suspenders towards the third class stairwell.

“A wonderful selection of chocolate inside! Don’t forget!” James exclaimed, eyes imploring Sirius to take the hint. He was dragged down the stairs, waving at staring passengers who clung onto their children and purses a little tighter.

Walburga took a final sip of her tea before standing and smoothing out her skirt, indignant frown thinly veiling her frazzled exterior. “What a disgrace. Come, Cordelia, shall we go?”

Cordelia nodded, delicately placing her napkin on the table and following Walburga down the deck, leaving Regulus and Sirius to their own devices.

“I’m going to play chess,” Regulus said slowly, calculating his every move. “Enjoy your day.”

Sirius watched him walk away, lips parted, mouth dry. What the hell?

James couldn’t have been more obvious. Remus was here – but where? Remus was here – but would Sirius meet him? Remus was here – but could Sirius stand to look him in the eye?There was only one way to find out.

Sirius left the table and tried, as inconspicuously as possible, to peer into the many rooms lining the promenade, cupping his hands against the glass windows. He passed one empty room and then another, and then a third. He worried he’d run out of rooms to check, but no sooner did he pass the fourth window did he find himself yanked back through a doorway, face to face with Remus.

“That wasn’t very subtle,” Remus mumbled, hands still clasped around Sirius’ coattails. “Sorry about that.”

Sirius thought he could do it. He thought he could look in Remus’ eyes and not feel like he was punched in the gut with every single rib protecting his heart shattered into a trillion pieces.

He was wrong.

“I can’t do this, Remus,” Sirius tried to say as he was pulled farther into the room, cowering from the view of the windows.

Concealed in a dim corner, Remus let go of his hand. He had practiced what he’d say for hours, but now, face to face with Sirius, staring at his sullen eyes and taut mouth, the words fell off his tongue. Remus parted his lips, but no sound came out.

“I have to go,” Sirius breathed, choking on the sentence. His look of defiance was an unconvincing act; his shoulders curled inwards and his lip quivered as he fought to surrender everything he was for everything he wanted to be. He took a step towards the door, silently begging Remus to stop him.

And for once, maybe Sirius was telepathic.

Remus’ hand clasped his with a rough grip, refusing to let him take another step. “You owe it to me to hear me out.”

“I know,” Sirius nodded, twisting their hands together so their fingers interlocked. It was entirely different than feeling Cordelia’s palm against his; this was stronger, frantic even, fraught with fear that they’d lose each other to time and money and lies. “But Remus–”

“I’m not letting you run away this time,” Remus promised, squeezing Sirius’ hand. “So shut up and listen.” Swallowing back a ripple of amusement at Remus’ sudden domineering nature, he nodded. “You’re an asshole. An absolute wealthy, selfish, obtuse prick who left me alone on that deck last night. I don’t know what’s going on in your head. Or your heart. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s something. But I do know that you’re never going to be happy like this. You deserve a good life, Sirius. If you don’t want me, then tell me and I’m gone. But I can’t leave without knowing that you aren’t going to jump off another boat. Give yourself a chance and take it.”

“Don’t you think I’ve tried?” Sirius cried, ripping his hand away from Remus. He raked his fingers through his hair and bit down harshly on his lip. “I’ve tried being happy, Remus. I’ve tried to get through everything like an obedient little twat. I’ve tried defiling my family name. None of it makes me happy.”

Sirius dug his knuckles in his eyes and rubbed the skin harshly, steeling himself. When he spoke next, Remus had to lean in closer to catch every word. “My mother caught me once. With another boy. I was sixteen. He was one of the housekeeper’s sons. We were lying on my bed, and I was on top of him and then she came in and saw us. She chased him and his mom out of the house, and came back for me with the belt.”

Remus watched Sirius’ fingers gently rub a circle on his hip, wincing a little at the memory. With a stroke of bravery, Remus covered Sirius’ hand, stilling his fingers and finding a gentle hold on the curve of his body. Sirius let him do it, ever so slightly leaning into his touch.

“If I try to be happy, I lose. If I play the part of perfect heir, I lose. There isn’t a situation where I can win.”

“There’s one,” Remus breathed, inching closer to Sirius, pressing him against the wall. His cheeks burned as the words found his tongue, but he meant every single syllable, and the look of sheer determination on his face told Sirius as much. “When this boat docks, you come with me.”

Whatever Sirius had been expecting, those eight words were not even remotely within the range of possibilities. He found himself shaking his head before the words even hit his brain, his body betraying him as he nudged closer still to Remus.

“Give me one good reason why you can’t,” Remus demanded, effectively cornering Sirius.

He stuttered for a moment before blurting, “because I’m getting married.”

“To a girl you don’t love,” Remus clarified slowly, attempting to find the logic.

“Well…” Sirius trailed, trying to justify his incredibly lame excuse. He searched the floorboards, sure there must be an answer in the expensive hardwood. It was made of ancient trees, wasn’t it? Surely a room full of hundred-year-old trees had some kind of wisdom to impart. “Sometimes she isn’t completely awful.”

Remus’ mouth descended into a hard line, eyebrows raising. “Look me in the eye and tell me you love her. Tell me you love her and I’ll leave you alone.”

At the sudden demand, Sirius met Remus’ eyes with an astonishing haste, swimming in pools of warm honey. Remus’ gaze was so unlike Cordelia’s, mountains of generosity, valleys of unbridled kindness, a reckless demeanor in between; it made Sirius feel wholly unworthy of such grace.

All he had to do was say that he loved Cordelia. Three words. Three words to save Remus from an unfortunate fate, to brace himself for his new life in the not-so-distant future, to put an end to this silly affair once and for all.

He couldn’t.

The urgency of Sirius’ mouth crashing against Remus’ was almost enough to knock them both clean off their feet. They used the wall to steady themselves, a small moan escaping Sirius lips as he begged for more, Remus scoffing at the ridiculousness of it all. There was no finesse to this kiss; there was teeth and biting and tongue and gasping, with no attempt to muffle the noise or stop to breathe.

“Wait,” Sirius mumbled, gently taking Remus’ face into his hands and pulling back. A brief flash of panic reflected on Remus’ face, their last kiss haunting his every thought. Sheepishly, Sirius recognized it and quickly kissed his forehead in reassurance. “We can’t stay here.” He gestured to the tall windows on the other side of the room. “C’mon.”

“What about your mother?”

“Her and Cordelia are going to the Turkish baths for a couple hours. I hope they don’t drown,” Sirius smirked. “Regulus is probably playing chess in the brandy room or something. He’s a smart prick like that.” He pulled Remus towards the door, then whirled back around, frowning at his clothes. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but when was the last time you took a bath?”

To say Remus forgot how to breathe was an understatement. His legs shook the whole way to the Black’s suite, fingers quivering, and he found it hard to walk behind Sirius with his nose in the air when he could hardly feel his own body. He wondered if Sirius could hear the slamming of his heart against his ribs or the chatter of his teeth.

The door to the Black’s suite looked like any other, a pristine shade of white with silver knobs, but it felt different in his hands as Remus closed it behind him. The enormity of the moment hadn’t escaped him. He was standing in Sirius’ room, decorated nicer than anything he had ever seen in a museum. He was staring at Sirius, letting his heart sing a quiet melody like a bird chirping the song of spring, the flowers blossoming anew. He was kissing Sirius, two firm hands pressing at the base of his neck.

“Did you know that you’re a good kisser?” Sirius asked, smirking.

“That’s because you have low standards,” Remus remarked, raising one eyebrow.

Sirius gestured to the room behind him. “Clearly.” He backed away, nodding for Remus to follow. “Shower’s over here. There’s towels and soap and whatever else you need.”

The bathroom was filled with sparkling porcelain and pristine tiles. There was a clawfoot tub calling Remus’ name – god, when was the last time he soaked in a warm bath? – but he didn’t want to take too much time away from Sirius. Remus thought about Sirius joining him in the bath, naked bodies slotting and sliding against one another, and his cheeks flushed a brilliant crimson.

He shook the image out of his head – what a gorgeous image it was – and stepped towards the shower. Up until now, Remus had been under the impression that all showers were the same; a few knobs here, the water sprays there, easy. There were no less than four dials to this monstrosity, each attached to a different pipe.

“Can I ask you a stupid question?” Remus called out the door. Sirius appeared almost instantaneously, blushing a little at his overzealousness. “How do I turn it on?”

Sirius couldn’t help but laugh, even as Remus pouted. “Hot, warm, cold?”

“Boil me like a lobster.” The Atlantic air had infiltrated every filament of his body; even buried under a blanket with a cup of steaming tea wasn’t enough to thaw his bones. The notable exception, Remus had realized, was that somehow, whenever he was around Sirius, he was instantly warmed with the heat of a hundred suns. Judging from his flushed cheeks, maybe Sirius felt the same way.

Sirius skirted around Remus and adjusted the knobs accordingly, holding a hand under the water until it stung his palm.

“All set,” he said, standing awkwardly in front of the shower, blocking Remus from stepping under the spray. It took Sirius a long moment to get his wits about him, too enamored with the thought of Remus standing in his bathroom naked. “I’ll just…ah…” He slipped past Remus and brushed the door behind him, not quite closing it, and sat on the edge of his bed, spine rod-straight and fingers politely folding in his lap. A picture of innocence superimposed on a sinning soul.

Remus shed his clothes rather ceremoniously, trying to keep James’ suit as wrinkle-free as possible, taking care not to lose the cufflinks or suspenders, and stepped into the shower, gasping as the water burned his skin, but sinking into the spray nonetheless. He let the water run over his eyes and down his chest, sighing as the knots in his muscles slowly faded.

There were three bars of soap at his disposal, and he selected the one in the middle that smelled like old barrels of rum and a mossy forest floor. It was a little misshapen from use, probably from the last time Sirius took a shower. As Remus dragged the bar across his body, working it into the crevices under his arms, in the crook of his knees, and around his groin, he thought of that very same bar of soap trailing over Sirius’ skin, lathering all the places Remus ached to touch. It made Remus suck harshly on his lip, willing the blood flowing rapidly between his thighs to quiet down; he wasn’t sure how he’d explain such a prominent bulge in James’ already tight pants. He tried to think of anything else – dead cats, or something – but every time he closed his eyes, Remus saw that crooked smile, and goddamnit if it didn’t look like home.

Sirius tried to ignore it. He tried to ignore the water spraying against Remus’ body, the quiet humming echoing from inside the bathroom, the spasms of desire crippling his body. His toes curled against the hardwood, begging his body to take just a single breath without thinking about the smell of his soap over Remus’ skin. Temptation was a bitch, though, and Sirius couldn’t help it when his gaze crawled towards the bathroom, leaning forward just enough to peer through the crack in the door.

Though the room was swirling with steam, he could just make out Remus with his back to him, resulting in a spectacular view of the curve of his ass, soap dripping down his muscled legs, curls plastered to his head. God, what Sirius would do to stand under that water with him. They wouldn’t even have to do anything; quietly observing every part of his body was more than enough. With the building pressure below his belt, Sirius wasn’t sure he’d last long anyway.

When he heard the water shut off – admittedly, he had hoped that a towel-clad Remus would require some assistance with that task – Sirius straightened up, scrambling for something to do with his hands to hide his prying eyes. There wasn’t much at his disposal. Cordelia’s second corset wasn’t an option, and he couldn’t very well just sit there twiddling his thumbs like a child in primary school, so he raced across the room to his box of paintings. Never had Picasso looked less impressive.

Remus shuffled out of the bathroom a moment later, tugging on his dress shirt and too-tight pants. Sirius frowned.

“You can’t wear the same clothes,” he said, already walking over to his own wardrobe.

“I don’t have much else,” Remus shrugged. “They don’t smell that bad, I don’t think.”

Sirius dug through the drawer until he found his favorite white shirt – was it terribly pretentious that he had a favorite white shirt? – and a pair of brown pants. They’d be a little short on Remus, having been tailored for Sirius’ height, but they’d have to do. He pushed the clothes into Remus’ reluctant hands.

“I can’t take your clothes,” he tried to say, but Sirius wouldn’t hear of it. Eventually, Remus sighed, conceding defeat, and Sirius could see a flash of excitement in his irises when his fingers brushed the fine fabrics. Remus retreated to the bathroom, pushing the door closed behind him, and emerged a new man.

Sirius had never seen someone else wearing his clothes before. He went to make a witty remark about the pants still not fitting quite right, but when his lips parted, he just exhaled slowly, and he couldn’t stop looking at the way his favorite shirt hung off Remus’ shoulders, clung to his chest, and curved at his waist. Sirius’ favorite shirt looked better on Remus than it did on him, and he wasn’t even mad about it. He couldn’t be, with this Adonis in front of him.

“Is that your art collection?” Remus asked, joining Sirius by the box of frames. That’s what he wanted to know? How could Sirius think about paint and oil and charcoal when Remus looked like that?

It was almost obscene how much Sirius’ body ached to touch Remus, but he shoved his hands in his pockets, saving it for another time. He regarded his paintings and nodded. “Just my favorites. I didn’t want to leave them behind.” On Remus’ questioning glance, he added, “my family doesn’t appreciate my artistic tastes.”

Remus gestured to the box. “May I?”

Sirius nodded, watching with baited breath as Remus lifted each canvas out of the box, marveling at their images. It was an innately intimate and vulnerable thing, showing your favorite art to someone else, hoping they would find the same meaning in the colors, the same story in the lines, the same reflection in the silhouettes and shadows.

Remus was quiet until he reached the last frame, holding the canvas with two delicate hands, his head tilting and lips pursing.

“This one is my favorite,” he mused. “It’s from the Sistine Chapel, right?”

“ _The Creation of Adam_ ,” Sirius confirmed, smiling at his most precious painting. It didn’t have the grandeur of the Sistine Chapel or the magical glow that only Michelangelo could lace into his brush, but it was a gorgeous recreation of his work. “I had an artist in Rome paint it. But just the best part.”

Remus nodded in agreement. “The hands.”

Gone were the cherubs surrounding God and the muscled body of Adam; the painting was just two hands, so close to touching but miles spreading between them, outstretched fingers desperately trying to close the space. When he visited the Chapel, Sirius didn’t know why, out of every ornate painting on the ceiling, he was most mesmerized by the hands, but now, standing next to Remus, his fingers numb in his pocket, he was starting to understand.

“I want you to draw me, Remus,” Sirius breathed suddenly, his voice low and husky so his words would belong to only one man.

Beside him, Remus straightened his shoulders, gingerly lowering the painting back into its box. “I can’t. You’ve seen my sketches already. They’re horrible.”

Sirius dug in his pocket and pulled out a crisp ten-pound note. “You can’t say no to a paying customer.”

“Sirius–”

“I’ve had a hundred portraits done before,” Sirius interrupted, tucking the money into the pocket of Remus’ shirt. “I want something different. Something I’ll keep tucked away for no one else to see.”

Remus licked his lips, swallowing hard at Sirius’ sly grin. “I’m going to need some paper.”

The lighting in the sitting room was the best, all soft yellow and blending into the plush red furnishings, so that’s where Remus instructed Sirius to sit. He found a scrap piece of notebook paper with the Titanic insignia printed on top, the only real paper Remus had to work with, and sharpened his charcoals with a knife. Never had Remus been so grateful for carrying around stubs of charcoal in his pockets at all times.

Sirius emerged from the bathroom, long hair brushed neatly away from his face, and looked to Remus for direction.

“On the couch is best, I think,” Remus said tightly, wondering how he was supposed to complete this portrait with his fingers shaking so much. “You said you wanted it to be special, right?”

“Don’t make me look like Rembrandt,” Sirius chuckled, approaching the sofa, “I have enough of those.”

Remus nodded. “Sirius?” The dashing aristocrat stopped in his tracks at Remus’ husky intonation. “Take off your clothes.”

It wasn’t the most eloquent way to ask, but it certainly was effective. Sirius’ throat bobbed as he unbuttoned his shirt, slipping the silk off his shoulders and discarding it on the floor. Next came his belt, jingling in time with the nerves ricocheting through his hands, and then his pants, pooling at his feet. Sirius stepped out of his trousers, fingers hooked into his underwear, staring intensely at Remus as he guided the fabric over his thighs.

Remus stared shamelessly at Sirius, drinking in his chiseled abs, the strong lines of his collarbones meeting his shoulders, the dips in his hips that pointed to the paradise between his thighs. He watched Sirius sink into the couch, propping his head up on his hand and bending his knee just enough to block Remus’ view from the most sensitive place on his body.

“Like this?” Sirius’ voice was strangled with nerves, shaking almost as hard as Remus’ hands.

Frowning, Remus rose from the chair and approached Sirius. He rearranged his hair, cascading over his shoulders, and positioned Sirius’ body just enough for his chest to catch more light. He brushed a gentle finger over an ugly bruise on Sirius’ hip, where the belt must have hit when Walburga found him with another boy. Remus kissed the mark, hearing Sirius sharply inhale at the touch, before returning to his charcoal and paper.

“Don’t move,” he whispered.

“I don’t think I could if I tried,” Sirius admitted quietly. 

The first line was always the hardest. Too dark, and it ruined the drawing automatically. Too light, and it gave no direction for the second stroke. Where to start first? The slope of Sirius’ nose, perhaps, or the curve of his waist? Remus settled on his jaw, chiseled and sharp, the place where he wanted to kiss most, sinking into his body and never come up for air. Remus’ eyes flickered from the paper to Sirius, taking in every detail and transposing it in charcoal, narrowing his eyes to find the smallest details on his body. The freckle on his arm. The cowlick parting his hair. The scar on his mouth. Every detail that defined Sirius’ existence; an effervescent, divine, cataclysmic man, destined to collide with the brightest constellations in the night sky.

“You’re blushing,” Sirius said quietly, a small smile tugging on his mouth.

“You should see yourself,” Remus quipped, shading in the crease where Sirius; thighs met. “No smiling. You have stay–”

“Serious?”

Remus grinned, shaking his head.

“I can probably do that.” Sirius’ chest rose and fell rapidly, his palms clammy and his mouth dry. His eyes never left Remus’, staring with such a vulnerable intensity it nearly made him teary. Sirius had never believed he would fall in love. What was love, anyway? A strange, foreign concept, that had never existed within the four walls of the Black family dynasty. But this? This was new and electric, paralyzing and liberating, all at the same time. A flurry of emotions that Sirius couldn’t begin to describe, but felt so fully within every chamber of his heart that he couldn’t help but gasp for breath.

Some indiscriminate amount of time later, Remus finished the last stroke of his drawing and signed his name in the corner. He blew on the paper, scattering loose flakes of charcoal before holding it away from his face.

“Well?” Sirius asked, trying to gauge Remus’ reaction. He grasped for his clothes, on the floor, suddenly a little embarrassed sitting so bare in front of Remus without the scraping of charcoal against paper.

Remus nodded. “I think it’s my best work yet.”

Sirius left the couch and joined Remus, buttoning his trousers and gingerly taking the drawing. It was soft and subtle; gone were the harsh lines inherited from the Black genes, in its place a tender face, eyes twinkling even in the black coal. The curves of his body were sensual and carnal, begging to be touched and not just admired from afar.

“It’s beautiful, Remus. I…thank you.”

Sirius took Remus’ hands gingerly, fingers ghosting along his palms, tracing the folds and cracks in his skin, thumbs brushing over his knuckles. He yearned to know every inch of Remus, learn his body and hold his heart. Kissing their laced hands, Sirius pressed his lips against Remus’ neck, breathing in the musky soap lingering on his skin, drunk on the way it clung to his body.

Remus sighed as Sirius peppered his throat, his eyelashes fluttering when he sucked on a sweet spot, his hands tightening around their interlocked fingers. Never had he been kissed with such a fiery passion. It was dizzying. It was bliss. It was–

Walburga. Standing in the doorway. Frozen.

At Remus’ gasp, Sirius pulled away, following his gaze across the room, jerking away as if he had been shot on sight.

He had seen his mother angry before. He had seen the hurricanes, the tornados, devastating everything in its path that usually led right to Sirius. He had seen the raging infernos, her hands shaking and eyes igniting the subject of her gaze. He had even seen the quiet anger, too furious to move, to speak, to breathe.

Sirius hadn’t seen this.

Feral. Bellicose. Staring at her son with pitch in her eyes, looming over the room like a malevolent shadow. Fingers by her sides arched like talons, demonic and poised to kill. She was a black apocalypse, on a warpath to annihilate anyone and anything who stood in the way of her dynasty.

Behind her, Cordelia peered over Walburga’s shoulder, doe-eyed and pale, shattered like a porcelain doll, not even her bright red lipstick able to conceal the betrayal careening across her cheeks. For that look alone, Sirius felt a pang of guilt twisting his stomach, but he couldn’t afford to let his gaze stray.

Walburga took three measured steps into the room, slowly, as if calculating her every move, playing chess, not checkers.

Without turning, she commanded, “Cordelia, close the door.”

Cordelia obeyed, the shock paralyzing her voice, unable to cry or scream or beg.

“I will kill you,” Walburga threatened, taking another step forward.

Sirius nudged his way in front of Remus, his chest puffing, shoulders rising, defiance flaring his nostrils. She would not touch him. Not a single curl on his golden head. He could promise that much. 

“No, you won’t,” Sirius defied.

The door to the adjoining room opened, and Regulus stopped short, eyes flickering back and forth from Sirius and Remus to Walburga. Without a word, he approached Cordelia, tenderly taking her hand and escorting her to his adjoining bedroom. They didn’t make it out before Walburga lunged.

“You will not disobey me!” She screamed, embedding her nails into Sirius’ skin and taking a swipe at Remus.

Cordelia screamed, tears finally springing to her eyes, tearing away from Regulus and flinging herself into the throes of the attack. She wheeled on Remus, slapping his cheek, Sirius unable to defend him while trying to keep his mother at bay. Regulus collected her again, struggling to keep her under wraps, and tossed her in his adjoining room, locking the door.

“Regulus! Sirius, don’t you dare!”

Sirius narrowly avoided an airborne vase aimed at his head, wincing as the glass exploded against the wall behind him. Walburga launched a book in Remus’ direction, hitting his jaw, perfectly on target.

“Go, Remus!” Sirius shouted, pushing him into the next room over, stumbling over a chaise and spilling to the ground in his haste. Walburga took the opportunity to pounce, pulling Sirius to his feet by the scruff of his neck, her other hand clenched on his chin.

“Sirius!” Remus yelled, hesitating without him.

“I hope it was worth it,” she growled. “Regulus! Call the Master at Arms. There’s a rat in our room.”

Sirius thrashed hard enough to throw Walburga off balance, ducking out of her arms. With one last ditch effort, Walburga reached out, securing a harsh grip in Sirius’ long hair. He yelped in pain as he tumbled to the ground, but then Regulus was beside him, fumbling with Walburga’s hands, pinning her to the floor, giving Sirius just enough time to find his feet.

“Regulus, get off me this instant!” She shrieked, watching her eldest son retreat, hand in hand with his lover. Sirius flinched when he heard the familiar sound of a hand cracking against skin, and he only hoped, for Regulus’ sake, that his mother wasn’t wearing her gaudy rings.

“Sirius–” Remus tried again, crashing into a formal sitting room, attempting to piece together the civil war that he had unintentionally launched.

“Keep going,” Sirius interrupted, directing him towards another door, “Reg can only keep her so long.”

Sirius flung open the door to the hallway, running head first into Snape, his hand poised to knock on the door. He glared down his long nose, eyebrows raising to his greasy hairline.

“I heard screaming,” he muttered, eyes lifting over Sirius’ shoulder and landing on Remus. Snape may have been a bastard, but he wasn’t an idiot, most unfortunately.

Off in another room, Walburga screamed, “get the Master of Arms!”

Before Snape could move, Sirius reeled his fist back and landed a spectacular hit in the center of Snape’s face, taking more than a little satisfaction in the crunch the bone made on impact. Snape crumbled to the ground, hands clasped around his nose. Sirius skirted around him, tugging Remus’ shirt with him.

“I’m really sorry about this–” Remus apologized before they took off at a sprint down the hallway.

“I’m not!” Sirius called over his shoulder as they disappeared around the corridor.


	8. Part VIII

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on Tumblr @simplysirius for sneak peaks, more fics, and fanart! I also take requests :)  
> Part IX coming Friday, Nov. 20!

Snape was chasing them, but all Remus could think about was the way his rough, calloused fingers were clamped tightly in Sirius’ smooth palm.

Remus could hear his furious footsteps pounding behind them, tearing down the hallway with a vicious vendetta. In hindsight, Sirius probably shouldn’t have punched him, but he didn’t seem to have any regrets about it. Whenever they heard a woman shriek or a painting clatter against the wall, Sirius laughed, no doubt imagining Snape stumbling on his feet in blind rage.

There was no telling where they were going; Sirius lead the way, expertly dodging patrolling crewmen and strolling passengers, ducking through archways and crashing down stairs, taking the steps three by three.

It was more than likely that if Snape caught them, Sirius – and by association, Remus – would be pounded into a pulp, but even the threat of losing his life paled in comparison to the possibilities that radiated with Sirius’ hand clasped firmly around Remus’. He was determined not to let go – not now, not ever – even if it meant gluing their skin together or tying a hundred knots of rope around their knuckles.

“C’mon, in here!” Sirius urged, tugging Remus through a pair of swinging doors.

“We’re not allowed in the kitchen!” Remus chastised, falling into the bustling room behind Sirius, narrowly avoiding smacking into a waiter holding a grand silver platter on his shoulder. “Sorry!”

Sirius only giggled, stealing a steaming bread roll off the counter, hissing as he burnt his tongue. Remus took the opportunity to lean on a table and catch his breath, lungs burning and chest heaving, looking up at Sirius through his sweaty curls, unable to hide his smile.

“Here, eat up,” Sirius said, offering Remus a roll. He took it, but only because he hadn’t eaten lunch and wasn’t expecting to run a marathon around the ship. Food tasted better around Sirius. “I think we lost him.”

They didn’t.

The kitchen doors swung open, revealing Snape in his greasy glory, standing in the threshold of his murder spree. His eyes scanned the kitchen, finding Sirius and Remus easily, the only idiots not wearing a white chef’s coat, and he charged with his hand wrapped firmly around the hilt of a steak knife.

“Shit!” Remus cried, sprinting away before Sirius could blink, taking the lead in their escape. With Sirius in tow, they stumbled around the kitchen, running into chefs and leaping over shattered dishes, picking up bits of food fresh out of the oven. The cooks shouted and swore, breaking off into long strings of French, and Remus didn’t need to speak the language to recognize the colorful, vulgar pet names. A large pot of soup clattered to the floor, carrots and broth and chicken pouring out. Remus glanced behind his shoulder only once, blinded by Sirius’ wicked smile and Snape’s flaring eyes, thrilled that he was a fugitive of love and cheating death all at the same time.

“Watch out!” A chef cried, at the same time Sirius gasped.

When he turned forward, Remus screamed, about to fall face first into a frying pan bursting with flames, the cook yelling something indeterminate in French as he tried to keep it from setting Remus on fire. Remus ducked just in time, falling to the tile and scrambling to find his feet. Sirius pulled him up, pushing on his back to go faster. Snape was gaining, and the kitchen provided far too many sharp objects that were prime for slicing fingers and limbs and noses from bodies.

“Stop them!” Snape yelled, slipping on the bowl of spilled soup, trying desperately to stay upright but losing balance, his left leg slipping one way and his right leg the other, and amidst the yelling cooks and boiling water and burning croissants, a distinct rip cut through the air.

Sirius stopped on a dime. He had to take in the moment. Over the course of his lifetime of unfortunately knowing Snape, Sirius had imagined what it would be like to ruthlessly embarrass – and sometimes maim – the intolerable man, but he didn’t think it would go like this.

He also didn’t think that Snape wore pink underwear. But here he was, split on the tiled floor on board the Titanic in his expensive pants, fuchsia underwear peering out of the fantastic rip along the seam on his ass.

“I’ll get you some new pants for Christmas!” Sirius called, stumbling backwards as Remus pressed him along. “And I’ll have Cordelia get you some new underwear!”

“Hurry up!” Remus groaned, avoiding one last cook before they successfully escaped, leaving Snape fuming in a puddle of soup. Even Remus admitted that he wished he had a camera for that one.

“Where are we going?” Sirius giggled, matching Remus’ stride and taking another bite of his bread roll. A truffle fell from his pocket and bounced on the floor, but he had no time to pick it up before Remus pulled him down one set of stairs and then another.

Remus shook his head, a silent plea for Sirius to just shut up before someone else picked up on their trail. They descended staircase after staircase, leaving behind the grandeur of first class in favor of bland gray shafts and vacant corridors. Pushing open a heavy steel door with the words _DO NOT ENTER_ written plainly across its face, Remus pulled Sirius into the cargo hold, sealing the door closed behind them.

He wouldn’t have found the hold if it weren’t for James, who insisted they needed a bigger space to play football. Though stuffed with large wooden boxes and mountains of luggage, it provided ample room for a decent football scrabble.

“Wow,” Sirius mused, untangling his hand from Remus’ and letting his fingers drag along the side of an automobile with shining brass trim and burgundy fiberglass. He reached in and tapped on the horn, spooking himself as the honking echoed in the vast room. Remus thought about stepping inside – he had never sat in such an expensive car before, and certainly not one with crystals stitched into the plush upholstery – but there were other things to see.

Sirius huffed as Remus pulled him away. “It gets better, c’mon.”

“It’s cold in here,” Sirius complained, pulling his jacket tighter around his body. The heat from the monstrous furnaces couldn’t quite penetrate the thick steel walls, and Sirius thought he ought to be able to see his breath swirling in front of him.

“Yeah, too bad we can’t do anything about that,” Remus deadpanned, rolling his eyes with a knowing smirk.

Sirius gamely stepped forward, pursing his lips as if trying to decide where to kiss Remus first, but he paused, eyes focused just over his shoulder, eyebrows raising in pure astonishment at the sight before him.

Remus smiled. “I knew you’d like it.”

Sirius had seen beautiful pianos before. Cambridge had plenty, and of course Walburga had commissioned a custom grand piano for the atrium of their estate. It was shiny and black and crisp, the low notes vibrating the floor and the high notes pinging against the glass windows. It was a piano.

This wasn’t just a piano.

It was art. It belonged in a museum, protected by glass barriers and red velvet ropes. There was something sad about that reality though, preventing something so alive and utterly breathtaking from fulfilling its true purpose. Sirius didn’t want to touch it, but he couldn’t not. The piano was made with layers and layers of wood, painting an elaborate scene on the cover. There were three animals – a wolf, a stag, and, rather strangely, a dog – posing royally, the wolf and dog’s jowls slack and tongues lolling out the sides of their mouths, the stag watching with its front leg flexed. The animals, enemies by nature, were undoubtedly smirking, defying instinct and setting the forest aflame with mischief.

“Sit,” Remus said, gesturing to the bench.

Sirius eyed the seat, equally as ornate with a magnificent doe engrained in the wood peering back at him, and shook his head. “I couldn’t.” Instead of backing away – or bowing down – like he should have, he ventured closer, letting his fingers brush the wood, and he knew he had to play it. He couldn’t stand in front of the world’s most magnificent piano and not play it. It was a crime. Sirius couldn’t have such a blemish on his record.

He sat down gingerly, not wanting to scuff the beautifully stained wood, and rested his fingers on the ivory, not quite ready to play yet. It was only polite to introduce himself, first. Sirius let his fingers ghost over the keys, from the lower register to the upper, along the frame and up to the fall board. There were a million compositions he could play. Mozart or Beethoven, maybe. Stravinsky, if he was feeling up to it, though he didn’t trust his fingers, taut with the cold, to do his favorite Russian pianist justice.

The first note he played was a C2, the low bass rumbling the chords inside the hulking piano body, sending a sharp vibration up his leg as he stepped on the pedal. Sirius’ fingers moved up the keys slowly, eventually adding his second hand. He closed his eyes, listening to the way the music reverberated across the room, bouncing off the steel hull and swallowing him whole. He couldn’t play Mozart or Beethoven or Stravinsky. He could only play Sirius Black, and what a daunting task that was.

Sitting before a priceless, larger than life piano with such an intimate audience, it may have been the first time in his life that Sirius could remember feeling nothing but pure, unequivocal joy. But Sirius was acutely aware that this happiness was born from years of despair, of hating his life and hating himself, years of wishing on every star in his godforsaken constellation for things to be different.

The melody leaving the piano was intensely melancholy, a smattering of black ink stains on a piece of parchment, blemished and ruined, a crumbling cathedral amidst a crowd of parishioners. Ever so slowly, Sirius’ fingers crawled up the keys, finding the middle register, and then quietly adding in the highest notes, a hopeful wave that crashed onto the shore. The cathedral may have been destroyed, but roses grow from ash, and the shattered glass glistened in the daylight, ready to be reborn.

At some point, Remus had joined him on the bench, though Sirius couldn’t be sure exactly when, no doubt watching the music build in Sirius’ body, hitting a crashing crescendo at the same time a tear slipped down his face. The music quietly trailed off as Sirius’ fingers lifted from the keys, the final note just a ghostly glance of a middle C.

“I can’t marry her,” he whispered, hooded eyes downcast at the keys, bracing his fingers against a chord but not bearing down. “This is all I’ve ever wanted, but...”

“So don’t,” Remus said without missing a beat, as if the answer was obvious. “Don’t marry her. Be happy. What else is there?”

It wasn’t enough to lift Sirius’ eyes. “I have to.”

“Why?” Remus challenged. “Why do you have to get married?”

“Because I’m engaged,” Sirius tried, met with a scoff. “Because it’s my duty as heir.” Again, Remus was dissatisfied with the answer. Sirius bit the inside of his cheek. “Because my father died owing money to a lot of shitty people and unless I marry a Slytherin, Regulus will lose everything.”

He had never said it before, but god. Lies are sour but the truth is, sometimes, almost inedible.

Remus let his hand cover Sirius’ on the keys, running a thumb over the prominent bones and translucent veins. “Regulus can come with us. He might have to sleep in the attic, but my mother loves cooking for other people. And my dad can teach him how to make all kinds of chocolate and sweets.”

“A perfect little life,” Sirius ruminated, the corners of his mouth perking up slightly.

Remus nodded, gesturing to the piano to distract Sirius from a picture that hadn’t been painted yet. “What’s the first song you learned how to play?”

“The Celebrated Chop Waltz,” Sirius chuckled, “I just call it Chopsticks, because you move your fingers like this.” He demonstrated with two upright fingers, stabbing them against the keys.

“Show me,” Remus requested, his voice quiet and husky, and almost at once, a bolt of lightning careened through Sirius’ body, searing his palms and setting his heart on fire.

With trembling fingers, Sirius covered Remus’ hand, pressing awkwardly on the keys, narrating as they climbed octaves. “F and G, then E and G, then D and B.” As they tripped through the song, Remus’ face inches closer towards Sirius’, and Sirius’ voice grew lower and lower, until their lips were just an inch apart and Sirius whispered the final notes. “C and C.”

Remus kissed him slow and dirty, letting his tongue slide between Sirius’ lips, one hand trailing up to cup his cheek. Sirius abandoned the piano, turning towards Remus to get a better angle, falling back on the keys that shrieked in protest. The piano was too gorgeous to desecrate, but Remus’ mouth was too distracting, and Sirius could hardly think straight when he felt a hand ghost up the length of his thigh.

“Please,” Sirius begged, a small moan escaping his lips when Remus let his hand rest over the zipper of his trousers. It took every ounce of control he had not to buck into Remus’ palm.

“You want me to fuck you while we’re playing Mozart?” Remus mused, removing his lips and smirking.

Sirius swallowed, trying to keep his voice even. “No. I want you to make love to me playing Mozart.” He didn’t have time to tell Remus that it wasn’t Mozart before his lips were otherwise occupied.

As badly as Sirius wanted Remus, they couldn’t very well fuck on a piano bench, so they stumbled around the cargo hold, disappointed that not a single rich prick brought a bed on board, so they piled into the back of the gleaming automobile, Sirius laying on the seat, Remus crawling on top of him.

Sirius had never undressed another man before. He hadn’t expected it to be so difficult, but his goddamn hands wouldn’t stop shaking enough to unbutton Remus’ shirt. How could he do anything when Remus’ hips were so heavy against his own, an unmistakable outline pressing into his thigh, and his hands were at his throat making quick work of his collar?

“Fuck it,” Sirius grumbled, silently apologizing to his shirt as he ripped the fabric apart, buttons tearing from their threads and scattering around the car.

Remus giggled, making a show of his nimble fingers taking care of Sirius’ buttons easily enough. “Impatient?”

“Yes,” Sirius grumbled, pushing his ruined favorite shirt off of Remus’ body, running his hands along his hot skin. There were old scars on his chest to match the ones on his face, healed and jagged, and Sirius’ heart clenched for just a moment, thinking about Remus alone on the streets, bleeding, waiting to heal, but worried about the alternative, too.

“Stop thinking,” Remus begged, tilting Sirius’ head up to meet his eyes with one slender finger on his chin. “It’s in the past.”

Sirius’ hand splayed on Remus chest, palm carefully holding his rapidly beating heart, thumb brushing against one particularly deep scar that was too deep for Sirius’ liking. “Remus…”

“I didn’t notice he had a switchblade,” Remus murmured, watching Sirius with hooded eyes. He flinched when Sirius pressed his lips to the scar, slowly exhaling and knotting his fingers in Sirius’ hair.

There wasn’t anything Sirius could do about the scars, but he could show Remus just how vivaciously alive he was. He pressed a kiss to every mark on Remus’ chest, working his way up to his neck, finally able to touch those strong collarbones. Sirius sucked a mark on the valley of his throat, letting Remus work his arms out of his shirt all the while, gasping when he felt a hand on his belt buckle.

Sirius fell back against the bench, giving Remus better access to his pants, his mouth falling open as Remus’ hand pressed down on his already hard length. It was just a ghosting touch – enough to make Sirius bite harshly on his lip, but so painstakingly gentle – and it made him desperate for more, lifting his hips in search of relief.

Remus responded with a sly smile, palming Sirius through his pants, not quite ready to unzip his trousers, thickly swallowing when the first moan slipped through Sirius’ lips. He alternated his grip – first gentle, then devastating – reducing the boy underneath him to shambles. Sirius couldn’t help the waves of pleasure ripping across his body, desperately pressing himself further into Remus’ hand, wishing he would stop toying and slide his pants off already.

“Stop teasing,” Sirius groaned, tugging at Remus’ pants, this time successfully releasing the button and undoing the zipper. He didn’t wait for Remus to get a move on; instead, he dipped his fingers into the waistband of his underwear, wrapping around Remus’ dick, already sticky and leaking, and squeezed.

Remus sighed at the pressure, his body stilling as Sirius pumped him quickly, head falling back against the door of the car. It was sloppy and awkward, with Sirius not quite knowing what he was doing and Remus reveling in just the thought of Sirius touching him.

Placing his hand over Sirius’, Remus said, “slower. Like this.” He guided their hands over his length, back and forth at a slow, steady rhythm. Sirius could feel every muscle in Remus’ stomach clenching, trying to keep from climaxing too early, which only made his own dick twitch with anticipation.

Sirius had imagined this moment a million times. Every time he lay with Cordelia. Every time he thought about trying to survive his miserable life. But this wasn’t miserable. This was a kaleidoscope of every dark desire he could fit in his body, twisting and turning in the light, beautiful and captivating.

Cordelia had never touched Sirius like this before – it wasn’t ladylike, and he wasn’t about to ask her, anyways – so he had become quite familiar with his own hand. He wasn’t afforded much time to himself behind closed doors, so he was all too used to a rapid, jerking rhythm to get himself off as quickly as possible. But Sirius had time, now. He had all the time in the world. He could fuck slowly, kiss deeply, touch everywhere, without fear. Following Remus’ steady rhythm, Sirius let his thumb swipe over the tip of his cock, grinning at Remus jerked above him.

“Fuck…do that again.”

Sirius did, and was rewarded with another jerk. He did it again, and again, and again, making Remus shudder this way and that, precome spilling over his fingers and onto his stomach, almost able to forget his own dick, straining against his underwear and aching to be touched. Almost. He could feel his pants already soaked through, surely staining the fabric, cock stiff and desperately pushing up towards his waistband to find relief. As discreetly as he could, Sirius removed his free hand from Remus’ arm and pressed the heel of his palm against himself, his body involuntarily arching upwards.

Remus caught him though, at once stilling his hand, ragged breaths falling from his chest. “Can I?”

It was a little embarrassing how quickly Sirius nodded. Remus leaned down, pressing a kiss to his mouth, then his neck, then his chest, and then – oh. Oh god. Sirius’ lungs ceased working then, eyes squeezing shut as Remus pushed away his boxers and took his dick into his mouth, just the tip at first, already painfully sensitive and bright red. He worked Sirius slowly, licking a strip down the underside of his length, where a prominent vein bulged, egged on by two strong hands knotting in his hair, pushing him closer and closer to Sirius’ body. What he couldn’t take in his mouth, Remus tended to with his hand, pumping in time with the bob of his head.

“Remus. Fuck, I– God, there, Remus, there,” Sirius cried, toes curling against the car door as Remus hollowed his cheeks and took him fully in his mouth, fingers expertly holding his heavy balls. Sirius hips bucked, and he felt a knot growing in his stomach, thighs shaking and sweat dotting his forehead. “Remus I’m going to–”

Remus pulled away almost immediately, despite Sirius hissing from the sudden lack of contact. He shook his head quietly, letting his lips wander back up Sirius’ body, stopping to caress his neck where Cordelia’s mark still stained his skin. Sirius opened his eyes, looking up to see Remus frowning.

“When your mother found you with that boy…were you…?”

It took a second for Sirius’ head to clear enough to process the words. “No. I’ve never…not with a boy...”

“I’m your first.”

“You’re my only.”

Remus’ nostrils flared and he swallowed before nodding decisively. “We have to do this right, then.”

Sirius gestured to the car. “You just gave me a blowjob in a Renault. Are we on the right track?”

“Something like that. You know, I’ve never been in one of these before.”

“There’s a lot of firsts tonight, then. My mother would be thrilled.”

They smiled at each other, an intrinsic understanding passing between their gaze. Two boys, worlds apart, colliding in a fiery, spectacular explosion, a new world lying just over the horizon.

Remus rubbed a gentle finger over Sirius’ cheek, who leaned into his touch and blinked up with long eyelashes.

“She doesn’t deserve you. She could live a thousand lifetimes and never deserve you,” Remus insisted. “You’re so beautiful, Sirius. So brave. Let me love you.”

Sirius could only whisper, not trusting his voice. “I’m yours.”

Remus shimmied out of his pants easily enough, tossing them on the floor of the car before working on Sirius. His hands smoothed over the curve of Sirius’ ass, dragging his trousers down, and then the backs of his thighs, catching on his knees. Remus tugged, but the fabric wouldn’t give.

“They’re stuck,” Sirius giggled, trying to kick his shoes off.

“Did you glue your shoes on or something?” Remus asked, pulling at the leather with all his strength.

Sirius strained underneath Remus, only very distracted by his naked figure sitting on top of his hips, finally able to dislodge one shoe, and then the other. “It’s the Italian leather.”

“Ooh, la, la,” Remus deadpanned, rolling his eyes and finally freeing Sirius of his trousers.

The boys paused, taking in each other’s naked figures. Remus was much more muscled than Sirius had expected, strong thighs straddling his body, broad shoulders framing his vision, veins running along his arms popping with the strain of holding his body back. Sirius traced the expanse of Remus’ back, letting his fingers run up and down his spine, settling on the curve of his ass and giving a little squeeze, just because he could.

Remus lowered himself over Sirius, bracing on his elbows, and kissed him slowly, nothing like before. This was deep and genuine, molding their souls together until there was no telling where one began and the other ended.

Between them, their dicks were hard and throbbing, and Sirius’ mouth fell open as Remus rutted against his thigh, desperate to relieve some pressure. With each slide of Remus’ body, Sirius writhed, his dick pressed against his stomach, drooling and needy. He was already so close, teetering on the edge, and he kept his lip firmly clenched between his teeth to keep from climaxing too soon. God, he got his first blowjob and suddenly he was a prepubescent schoolboy ready to cream his pants at the first sight of exposed skin.

“You’re…agonizing,” Sirius strained, failing to contain a small moan as Remus rutted again.

Remus smiled against his neck, reaching down and stroking himself, glistening in the dim light. “You’re just impatient.”

Fingers curling in the ends of his hair on his neck, Sirius pulled Remus even closer. “Make love to me, Remus Lupin.”

And so, Remus did.

He pushed into Sirius slowly, watching Sirius’ eyes slip shut, feeling his fingers tug at his head, listening to the stifled breaths caught between them. Remus pulled out slightly before gliding back in, encouraged by Sirius’ ankles digging into the back of his knees. Pushing his hips forward in time with Remus’ slow thrusts, the new angle sent a hundred explosions bursting throughout Sirius’ body, the moan that left his mouth so obscene it made Remus twitch inside him. He writhed on the bench of the car, toes curling against the plush fabric, dissolving under the painstaking rhythm.

There was heaven, there was hell, and then there was this. This was salvation, found in the brightest corners of the darkest rooms, in the way the orange sunset bled into the dark horizon before the moon tattooed stars in the sky, in the form of grace and bravery and courage.

Sirius spurred Remus faster, tightening around him and digging his nails into his shoulders, groaning each time Remus bottomed out. He was right there, so very close to finishing and excruciatingly tender. Sirius slid one hand between their bodies, taking careful hold of Remus’ swollen balls, squeezing just enough to make Remus lurch forward, his thighs trembling as he inched closer and closer.

“Sirius, I’m going to–”

“Me too.”

Remus rolled his weight to one arm, using his free hand to wrap around Sirius’ dick, working him both ways now, pumping with a few quick flicks of his wrist.

It was enough to make Sirius see stars – every single celestial body in the universe – and he came undone with a loud cry, holding onto Remus for dear life as he quivered through his high, making a mess of their chests and stomachs. Remus followed suit, spilling into Sirius with a couple sloppy thrusts, losing his rhythm while riding out his orgasm.

Soft and sensitive in his hand, Remus released Sirius from his grasp, finishing with a slow thrust before pulling out his sensitive dick. He awkwardly collapsed on the bench, not quite enough room for two exhausted and sweaty boys to spread out, but Sirius gladly took on his weight, sticky skin pasting together and swollen lips ghosting faces.

The windows of the car had fogged up in all the chaos of their lovemaking, frantic fingerprints and toe drawings painting lines within the condensation. Sirius took the opportunity to draw a smiley face, and Remus complimented it with a heart. 

“Tell me about your home. Where are you from?” Sirius asked breathlessly, pushing Remus’ sweaty curls off his forehead.

“Gryffindor.” Remus pressed his lips together, thinking about home. Thinking about bringing Sirius home. Thinking about making it their home. “It’s small. Everyone knows everyone. Cold in the winter, with tons of snow, and hot in the summer. Lots of crickets at night. Every Sunday there’s a big football game down on the pitch behind the library. And there’s this flower garden in the center of town that has a thousand roses in the spring.”

Sirius closed his eyes, humming along, nodding in all the right places, smiling against Remus’ neck. “It sounds nice.”

“It’s wonderful.”

They were silent for a moment, save for their rapid heartbeats, content in this quiet sliver of ecstasy.

“Remus? Will you take me to Gryffindor?”

There was no hesitation in Remus’ voice when he said, “absolutely.”

Sirius leaned up and kissed him gently, eyelashes fluttering against his cheek. They would have stayed like that forever – at least until the boat docked – if it hadn’t been for the screech of crushed metal and bursting pipes, shaking the ship violently and relentlessly. The boys bolted upright, wiping away the fog from the windows and clamping their hands over their ears, as the ship shuddered, crying out against the sharp attack, until it fell silent once more.

It was eerily quiet. Just long enough for Sirius and Remus to share a bewildered glance and clasp each other’s hands.

And then they heard the first scream.


	9. Part IX

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @simplysirius for sneak peaks, more fics, and fanart! I also take requests :)  
> Next chapter coming Monday, Nov. 23 (and let me just say it is a MONSTER. For a variety of other reasons...I apologize in advance...)

It didn’t look that bad.

Chunks of ice littered the deck, glassy shards glittering in the soft light washing over the boat and spilling out the windows. A group of tattered boys kicked around a lump of ice like a football, battling to see who could make it explode, sending it careening across the wooden deck.

Remus leaned over the rail, looking down at the ocean, and then at the iceberg left bobbing in the ship’s wake. There was no other sign of ice around; the Titanic was alone in an immeasurable ocean. The berg didn’t look that big, and there wasn’t any discernable damage to the hull of the ship. Back in London, the newspapers called the ship unsinkable, meant to withstand a solid hit from anything that dared challenge it to a fight. Surely a misshapen iceberg was no match. Just a grazing blow, probably.

Sirius watched crewmembers running up and down the stairs leading to the control room, ringing telephones and radio calls poorly muffled by the Titanic’s metal walls. Their faces were tight with panic, teeth gritted and the whites of their eyes stark against the night sky. He recognized Mr. Andrews’ voice within the mix, striding up to the bridge with scrolls of paper tucked under his arm, engaged in a rapid rapport with a high-ranking shipmate, still stumbling around his in his nightwear. Remus took hold of Sirius’ hand, frowning at the flurry of activity along the officer’s quarters.

“I don’t like this, Remus.”

“Something’s not right,” Remus agreed, pulling his shirt tighter around his body. While ripping the buttons off the blouse may have been the single hottest thing Sirius had ever done, it certainly made for a chilly night beneath the stars, the air biting at every sliver of exposed skin.

“It’s unsinkable,” Sirius said unconvincingly, shedding his coat and handing it over to Remus, who gladly slipped it over his shoulders. “Mr. Andrews designed it to withstand anything. The boat has these chambers or something that are made to fill with water.”

A pack of officers raced past them, flanked closely by a tall man in a regal overcoat with a brilliantly maintained white beard. Captain Smith’s age wore on his face, creasing his forehead and wrinkling his eyes, hardened by years of sailing and stale whiskey. They inspected the sides of the ship, mumbling between each other, waiting with baited breath for their orders. The Captain shook his head brusquely and barked indiscriminate commands at his crew, hurrying up to the bridge to join Mr. Andrews. The sailors scrambled across the deck, flying down stairs and slamming doors.

Sirius’ eyes narrowed on the Captain. He knew that look well. A brave exterior superimposed over a cracking foundation, bracing for impact but never quite knowing when it’s going to hit. “We have to go.”

“Where? I’m pretty sure we have bounties on our heads by now.”

Sirius tugged Remus behind him, marching towards the doors to first-class, not wasting time on an explanation. “I have to get Reg.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know.”

Remus yanked his hand back, halting Sirius in his tracks. “Think this through, Sirius. You can’t just expect to walk back in there after what happened. Someone’s going to get hurt.”

“That’s exactly it,” Sirius bit back, nostrils flaring, “if this ship goes down, I can’t leave Regulus. I won’t.”

Before Remus could argue, Sirius disappeared into the ship, and he had no choice but to follow.

Once upon a time, before he boarded the Titanic, Sirius had visited a local theater outside of London to watch a selection of nickelodeons, paying a meager five pence to stand over an angular brown box and look into the viewing window to see flickering film strips. The film was commonly underdeveloped, and sometimes it was difficult to ascertain what was going on, but even still, Sirius gave the attendant coin after coin, watching the short movies again and again.

Sirius’ favorite was just about twenty seconds long, featuring a man in a lavish suit with a dog lapping at his heels, spying on an old lady walking down the street. The spy tiptoed behind her and made a grab for her purse, but when the woman turned, a wig fell off her head, revealing a short man with the undeniable leer of a policeman. The officer struck down the spy, picked up the dog, and walked into the sunset.

It was, by all accounts, incredibly stupid. But it was the only thing Sirius could think of as he pounded down the hallway, his palms sweaty and teeth clenched. He had to bait and switch Regulus somehow. Lead Walburga into a trap, toss Cordelia to the wayside, and hope that Snape was too busy nursing his broken nose to intervene. He felt Remus at his back, no doubt cursing him out for running into a snake den unarmed, but refusing to leave his side nonetheless.

Suddenly, Sirius stopped, so quickly that Remus couldn’t help but stumble into him. He wheeled around, clutching Remus’ hand, his eyes burning with such an intensity that the whole boat was liable to burst into flames around them.

“No matter what happens, I’m leaving with you,” Sirius declared. “I’m going to get Reg and I’m leaving with you and I’m not looking back.”

Remus didn’t trust his voice, so he kissed Sirius instead, hard and bruising, fingers pressing into his jaw and under his ears. 

“Ahem.”

Sirius and Remus parted to see Snape leering at them from an adjacent hallway, crossing his arms on his chest, a ball of gauze taped around his nose. He was already working on a pretty nice black eye, and it would have made Sirius cackle like a hyena if Snape didn’t wear a murderous cape of death around his shoulders. They straightened out, bracing to go to blows that would never come.

“How nice of you to finally show up,” Snape sneered, fingers tightening around his biceps as if he was physically restraining himself from choking the life out of Sirius. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“Where’s Regulus?” Sirius demanded. Silence. “Where the fuck is he, Snape?

Jerking his head, Snape motioned for Sirius and Remus to proceed down the hallway.

“C’mon,” Remus urged, nudging Sirius’ elbow.

Sirius squinted at Snape, waiting for him to strike when they least expected it.

“Excuse me, gentlemen!” A man exclaimed, slipping between the stalemate and thundering down the hall, his coattails flapping behind him.

Sirius watched him skid on the floor, and take the nearby staircase two by two. They were running out of time. Without another look at Snape, Sirius grabbed Remus’ hand and set off for their suite, his heart hammering against his chest at the thought of the Titanic filling with water and pulling them to the bottom of the ocean with Regulus still trapped in Walburga’s clutches.

“It’ll be fine,” Remus whispered in his ear, knowing full well that it was not fine. Nothing about this situation – from the water most definitely filling the boat, to running towards their certain death – was fine. “Maybe it’s just a drill or something.”

Sirius only gripped his hand tighter, eyes narrowed at the sight of nothing short of half a dozen officers flowing in and out of his room. Remus paled, balking at the threshold of the door, but stumbled in at the press of Snape’s hand on his back, tugging at his jacket.

Walburga sat in a tall armchair with her hands folded neatly on her lap and a cup of steaming tea on the table beside her. A picture of Renaissance grace, placid and tranquil. On the far side of the room, Cordelia paced, stopping in her tracks as Sirius met her gaze. Black streaks tore down her cheeks, makeup unspeakably ruined, red eyes puffy and lips cracking from the salt.

But perhaps, most alarmingly, Regulus was nowhere to be found.

Sirius looked to Snape, and then Walburga, and finally Cordelia, steely eyes sharpening like a sword against a whetstone. “Where is he?”

“Would you like some tea, Sirius? Mary made a wonderful pot,” Walburga asked precisely, coiled like a snake ready to strike.

“There’s an emergency, we don’t have time to play bullshit games!” Sirius roared, taking no comfort in Remus’ hand gently pushing back on his shoulder. “The ship has been hit.”

Walburga sipped at her tea quietly, looking up over the rim, so temperate it made Sirius shrink back. She couldn’t have possibly cared less about their uncertain peril in a desolate ocean. Placing her cup back on the table, she nodded. “There is an emergency, indeed. I’m glad you’ve noticed. It seems as though Cordelia’s necklace has been displaced.”

“That’s a shame,” Sirius said sarcastically, sneaking a look at Cordelia’s bare neck. She was much prettier without that obnoxious diamond anyways. “If only we had the money to buy a new one.”

“If only,” Walburga replied. “However, I suspect that it is still within our ranks.” Her eyes flickered to Remus, who stiffened, knowing that insidious look all too well. It was the same look people gave him walking around in the London stores, sure that he must have slipped a scarf or a pair of mittens in his ratty pocket. He exhaled, releasing Sirius’ hand, not willing to put up a fight.

“Hey!” Sirius screeched as two officers took hold of Remus and stripped him of his jacket, patting down his pants and dipping their fingers in his pockets. Remus remained completely still, complying with the officers, knowing full well that he was clean but still trembling at the punitive hands assaulting his body. “You know he didn’t take anything! Cordelia!”

Cordelia refused to look at him, eyes burning a hole in the floorboards. Guilt wore at the folds in her face, furrowing her brows and crinkling her nose. Maybe if she didn’t look, she could clear her conscience.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” One of the officers asked, fishing in Remus’ pocket and holding up the ugly, heavy, gaudy necklace that Cordelia loved so much. “Miss?”

Remus’ body went cold, choking on what little air remained in his lungs. His body shook as he met Sirius’ gaze, for the first time really, truly believing he was about to be shot on site. “Please…I didn’t…”

Cordelia took the necklace carefully, brushing her fingers across the expanse of the large diamond, and barely nodded. “Yes.”

“This is bullshit!” Sirius shouted, trying to push off the officers off Remus, but they held steady as they handcuffed his hands together. “You planted that! We were together the whole time!”

“In more ways than one,” Cordelia whispered, all too aware of Sirius’ favorite shirt hanging off Remus’ shoulders. It was the one he had worn for their engagement photo, with a little _S.B._ stitched inside the collar.

“I didn’t take anything! I promise, I–”

“And how peculiar that the passenger registered for cabin 121 is named Milton Alcott. Is that a pseudonym you go by, Mr. Lupin? May I ask where you bought your ticket for this ship?” Snape simpered, taking hold of a ledger on the table next to him. He flipped through the pages, tilting his head, waiting oh-so-politely for an explanation. Remus’ mouth went dry, trying to ignore the Sirius’ furrowed eyebrows. “It seems like you have a proclivity for taking things that do not belong to you.”

Sirius turned to Remus, trying to find an explanation in his panicked face, at once seeing the reality searing into his retinas. Remus was a terrible liar, which only made the truth wear on his face like red paint.

“I didn’t mean to,” Remus tried to insist, struggling to keep his feet under him as the officers dragged him way. His voice was clouded with tears, strangled with desperation. “Please, Sirius, you have to believe me, I didn’t mean to steal the ticket. Please!”

The officers slammed the door behind them, leaving Sirius, Cordelia, Snape, and Walburga alone.

“Severus, would you see that Cordelia has a fresh cup of Earl Grey before bed?” Walburga asked, lifting her tea once more to her lips.

Snape nodded deeply, taking Cordelia’s elbow and guiding her into the adjoining room, despite her hesitation to leave Sirius. Not even Snape’s greasy hair could hide his contemptuous, victorious smirk.

That was it, then. Sirius stared at Walburga, refusing to back down. As she rose to her feet, he swallowed, chest heaving, teeth grit, ready to battle.

“I’m leaving. And I’m taking Regulus, too. You’ll have no heir, no money. No one to attack, no one to do your bidding. The Black business will collapse, and in a hundred years, no one will even remember us anymore. You’ll be alone. You’ll die alone. And your name will die with you.”

Walburga blinked at him, and at first, Sirius wasn’t sure if she had heard a single word he said. She was so calm, even smiling a little, but the scent of malice lingered on her skin, and Sirius realized, perhaps a little too late, that he was standing in the eye of the hurricane. The snake’s tail was already coiled around his body, but he had been too distracted to notice.

He watched his mother sip daintily from her cup once more before gazing into her tea. She glanced back up at Sirius, just so she could see his reaction as she splashed the steaming liquid onto his face.

“Fuck!” Sirius gasped, blindly stumbling backwards and grasping for something to douse his burning skin. He fell onto the bed, burying his cheeks against the blankets and whimpering at the pain, a hundred hot coals biting into his cheeks. He vaguely registered Walburga’s weight settling on top of him, a hand pulling at his hair and a knee digging into the small of his back, but he could hardly open his eyes, let alone muster the strength to throw her off.

“I told you there would be consequences,” Walburga said, pressing Sirius’ face harder into the bed. “You chose this.”

Sirius could just hear a sharp blade cutting back and forth near his ear, and he thrashed this way and that to topple Walburga, but it was too late. By the time he wrestled out from underneath her, his hair was jagged and uneven, harshly cut around his ears and close to the back of his head. The remnants of his beautiful locks were splayed on the bedsheets, limp and destroyed.

It was probably stupid to cry over a haircut, especially when your lover was just handcuffed and jailed for stealing a necklace he had never touched, and, not to mention, the fact that the fate of the ship’s survival balanced on the edge of a dangerous precipice. Hot tears blurred Sirius vision, and he grasped at his discarded hair, the strands slipping through his fingers and onto the floor. Prior to boarding the Titanic, it had been Sirius’ single act of defiance against the prim and proper establishment of his household, a mark that told people exactly who he was without uttering a word. There was Regulus, clean cut and perfectly polished, and then there was Sirius, rough around the edges and devilishly insolent. But now? Now he was Sirius, the jagged, jaded soon-to-be head of his house that was no different from anyone else, solidified in a life that would never truly belong to him.

There were a million things to scream at his mother. Sirius’ hand trembled, aching to curl into a fist and deliver a fatal blow, but when he opened his mouth, his voice was terribly steady.

“You are going to tell me where Regulus and Remus are, or I swear to god, you won’t have an heir anymore.”

Walburga seemed to understand that this was not a thinly veiled exaggeration. This was a threat on her life, only amplified as Sirius eyed the pair of scissors on the nightstand. Her thin lips parted, as if to speak, when a series of hurried blows against the door silenced her.

Sirius wasn’t keen to move, but after another round of knocking, he slithered to the door, unable to hide his surprise when Mr. Andrews stood before him, lifejackets in hand.

“Mr.–”

“Please put these on,” Mr. Andrews interrupted, shoving a lifejacket in Sirius’ arms and entering the room to hand one to Walburga. He clocked Sirius’ new haircut, but didn’t have time to dwell. “Wear your warmest clothes and gather on the west promenade immediately. Where is your other son? And your fiancé?”

“What is the meaning of this?” Walburga asked, holding the lifejacket away from her body between two fingers as if it was covered in mud.

Mr. Andrews licked his lips, the words burning his tongue. He fiddled with the other life jackets in his hands. “The ship will sink. In an hour. Maybe two. You must get on deck and go straight towards the lifeboats.”

Sirius shook his head, understanding all too well the implications behind Mr. Andrews’ stricken voice. “You told me there aren’t enough lifeboats for everyone on board. Then how–”

“Hundreds of people will die tonight, Mr. Black. I’d hate for it to be you.”

“This is ridiculous! You were supposed to build an unsinkable ship!” Walburga accused, throwing the lifejacket on the chaise. “Your boat of dreams can’t even survive a little scrape?”

“David killed Goliath with a stone,” Mr. Andrews explained. The room lapsed into silence for a moment, save for the bustling shipmates and passengers stumbling outside their door, no one quite sure whether to believe the unsinkable ship was not as impermeable as they once thought. Mr. Andrews handed Sirius the extra lifejackets and made for the door. “Please, get out. You deserve a chance to live.”

The words echoed in Sirius’ head, a thousand ricocheting bullets. Walburga stood still, regarding the lifejacket with disdain but slipping it over her luxurious fur coast. 

“We’ll get Regulus on the way,” she quipped, scrunching her nose as she secured the vest buckles on her chest. Walburga gathered a leather bag and selected various goods from around the room – some jewelry, a stack of bills, her finest hat – and regarded her reflection in the mirror, applying a second layer of dark rouge paint to her lips. “Fetch Cordelia.”

Sirius moved stiffly through the room, lifejackets in hand. He opened the door without knocking, stopping short. Cordelia was bent over a cup of tea, staring listlessly into the murky liquid, hair falling like a curtain between her and Snape, who enclosed one of her hands with two of his own. It was pathetic, really, how desperate Severus was, the lengths he would go to beg Cordelia for her love.

“Put this on. We have to go.” Sirius pulled Cordelia to her feet and shoved the jacket in her hands.

Snape stood up so quickly his chair was knocked to the floor. “Get out of here–”

“This ship is sinking and I really don’t give a single fuck if you end up at the bottom of the ocean, but I would suggest you get your head out of your ass if you want to make it to your meeting with the Malfoys,” Sirius shouted, forcing Cordelia’s arms into the lifejacket.

“That can’t be true,” Cordelia gasped, but the hurried cries from the hallway were enough confirmation.

“You’re certain…?” Snape questioned, losing his defensive edge, hardly able to choke the words past his teeth.

Sirius rolled his eyes. “I guess you’ll find out in about an hour, right?”

“Escort Walburga to the deck,” Cordelia dismissed, turning away from Snape and securing a furry hat on her head, “I’ll walk with Sirius.”

Snape hadn’t expected to be shrugged off so quickly, especially with such a flippant attitude. He scowled as he stalked off to the adjoining room, making sure to check Sirius’ shoulder with as much brute force as someone with a broken nose and a bruised ego can muster.

Cordelia watched him leave, rubbing her lips together and wiping her eyes before turning to Sirius.

“Do you love him?”

Sirius blinked. It was an easy question with an easy answer, but he was waiting for the punchline. He was nearly knocked off balance, but he realized it was the boat that was tipping, ever so slightly, tugged down by the cold fingers of the ocean.

Cordelia took a step back, palms raised. “I promise I won’t hit you.”

“Are you going to throw anything at me?” Sirius asked quietly, a wry smile twisting his face. Cordelia couldn’t help but scoff, and shook her head. “Yes. I think I do.”

She nodded, finally coming to terms with the fact that she lost the competition for Sirius’ heart. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make you happy.”

“Don’t pretend that I make you happy, either,” Sirius said, earning a small smile. “Now you have a second chance to marry someone you actually love.”

Cordelia exhaled, having never allowed herself to dream of such a possibility. “Thank you.” She spread her arms and – with only the slightest hesitation – Sirius welcomed her into his body. It was so gentle, an embrace unlike any they had ever shared, without agenda, without vitriol, and without consequence.

“This is sweet and all, and I’m glad you aren’t going to murder me, but this boat is sinking and you need to get to the lifeboats.”

“Just me?”

“I need to find Remus. And Regulus.”

“Reg is with Lockhart. Your mother wanted him out of the way so she could–”

“Give me a haircut?”

Cordelia reached out and tugged on the jagged ends of Sirius’ hair. “It could be worse.”

“Not really. What about Remus?”

She shook her head, frowning. Sirius tugged on the straps to Cordelia’s lifejacket and pulled them tight against her body. “Let’s go.”

At least Remus could say that he saw it coming. He was only surprised that it took this long.

Standing with his hands cuffed to a metal pole was not Remus’ idea of a good time, but he supposed it was better than a jarring beheading or getting tossed overboard. Although, if Sirius was right, Remus would be at the bottom of the ocean before he knew it.

There was a small window to his right, which, under normal circumstances, would display a dazzling carpet of stars hung in the sky. Instead, water lapped at the glass, gradually rising higher and higher as the ship sunk lower and lower. Remus was already braced against the pole at a moderate angle, the Titanic dipping farther below the surface.

“Hello?” Remus called, banging his handcuffs against the metal, hoping the sharp echo would attract attention and someone could break him free. Each small movement of his body was met with a cry from his stomach, where the officers had used him to clean their boots. Sirius’ ripped shirt already revealed a nasty black and blue mark, and as Remus jumped around, he half-expected to hear his ribs jumbling around.

He banged on the metal pole again, begging just one person to stop. There were distant cries somewhere down the corridor, but it seemed as though no matter how loud Remus shouted, he was drowned by fear and panic.

The hallway grew quiet for just a moment, before a quiet _whoosh_ approached the doorway. Remus held his breath – a passenger or another shipmate, perhaps; someone with opposable thumbs who could work a key into a lock.

Remus had no such luck.

It was not a person, and it certainly did not have opposable thumbs. The intruder was dark blue and vicious, spilling into the room with a fury that confirmed to Remus the truth: he was going to die. The water gathered around his feet and sloshed with the sway of the boat, seeking out its first victim.

“Oh, fuck.”


	10. Part X

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @simplysirius for sneak peaks, daily fics, and fanart! I also take requests :)
> 
> Thank you all so much for your wonderful comments on this fic. I save each and every one, and cannot tell you how happy it makes me that you love this story just as much as I do. The last part (I think!) will be out on Wednesday, Nov 25!

As Sirius pushed his way through the crowd, one hand clasped tightly around Cordelia’s, the other pressing into Regulus’ back to encourage him forward, he couldn’t help but glance around at the panicked passengers and think about the hundreds of gravestones in England that would be dated April 15, 1912. There were sixteen lifeboats swinging on the edge of the Titanic. Sixteen. Not enough by half to save every soul on board.

That man with the tattered jacket and scruffy beard? He’d be dead. The elderly couple huddled together, blanketed by a thin scarf against the wind? Dead. The father trying to throw passengers to the deck to ensure his daughter, sat on his shoulders, would live to see the morning? Dead, dead, dead.

They stumbled up the deck towards the first-class designation, wading through frenzied passengers trying to force their way into lifeboats, arguing with the stewards who insisted women and children must board first. The crowd thinned out as they made their way to the back of the boat, and Sirius couldn’t help but scoff. How was it that the richest passengers on the ship – some of the most well-educated, prodigal business people in the world – were so stupid and vapid as to stay inside the warm walls of the ship, peering out through the windows to wait their turn to board? Surely, they had at least one functioning brain cell to realize that they were standing on a soon-to-be mass grave site, right?

It seemed as though the women and children sentiment had not echoed on this side of the ship. Sirius recognized the man and woman from the dining room, bathing in new money and desperate for attention, climbing into the white wooden boat, perched beside another man with his boots polished so well he could almost see his reflection. It all made sense when Sirius clocked the stack of money poking out from the steward’s pocket, and he narrowed his eyes.

“Shall we sing a song while we row?” Lockhart jeered, tottering up to the boat with a jovial smile that did nothing to hide his apprehension. He hauled his luggage onto the rail and surveyed the boat, as if to see if it was up to his expectations. “I know a good one; gets stuck in your head, though–”

“Step in, step in, let’s go!” The steward ushered, ripping the bag from Lockhart’s hands and tossing it into the water below without a second thought. “No room! Hurry up, come on then!”

“My books,” Lockhart cried, stumbling into the life boat and crawling to the cold wooden seat on his hands and knees.

Walburga stepped in next, demanding the steward’s hand to balance in the rickety boat hanging from the ropes at a dangerous angle. She settled on her own bench, hands folded in her lap, peering over the side of the dinghy. For the first time, a flash of panic tore through her eyes, face to face with the deathly black stare of the ocean. Walburga was not as untouchable as she once thought; not even her most devious glare could ward away Death.

“Your turn,” Sirius said, his hand resting on the small of Cordelia’s back. She took a deep breath, willing her feet to move forward but stuck to the deck. Pressing a kiss to her cheek, Sirius whispered in her ear, “drink some of the red for me when you get to New York.”

Cordelia turned, a small smile playing on her lips. She nodded, cupping his cheek and brushing a thumb over the scar at the corner of his mouth. “Good luck.”

Sirius guided her into the boat, helping her maneuver the skirt of her dress as she huddled next to Walburga.

The ship pitched suddenly and a loud crack cut through the air as the watchtower broke in half, tumbling to the deck and landing on top of three unlucky passengers, their screams joining a chorus of shrieking and desperate panic. A splinter of wood stuck out from one woman’s chest, and, though she screamed and writhed, no one stopped to help her. A moment later, she was motionless.

Snape pushed his way to the front of the line, hauling himself into the lifeboat and joining Lockhart, eyes on the chaos enveloping the deck, relieved that his wealth had finally paid off. The steward narrowed his eyes, no doubt unimpressed by his cowardice, but said nothing as he tucked another folded stack of bills in his pocket. He reached out to help the next passenger to safety, but Regulus balked, sensing Sirius hesitating at his back.

Without warning, Regulus pulled Sirius into a rib-crushing embrace, burying his face into his shoulder, fingers grasping handfuls of his lifejacket like he was never going to let go. Sirius willingly took his weight, pressing Regulus further into his body. The twist in his stomach was not just from the impending doom of the Titanic slipping below the surface of the ocean. Sirius knew, from the way his heart recoiled and his lungs burned, that this would be the last time he would hold his little brother in his arms.

“You’re the best of us,” Sirius assured, the words getting caught in his throat, “you’ve always been the best. I’ll find you, okay? I promise I’ll find you.”

“I love you,” Regulus whispered, under no illusion that they would both live to see the tender breath of daylight breaking the horizon.

Clapping his Regulus’ back, Sirius dug his teeth into his bottom lip to keep it from quivering.

“E Deck. Two lefts, down the hall, and then a right. It’s a silver key.” Regulus pulled back just enough to look Sirius in the eye.

Somewhere behind them, someone ignited a flare, the bright white firework blasting into the night sky and exploding amidst the stars. Sirius watched the useless flare reflect in Regulus’ eyes, staring hard and true into his own. As it turned out, Regulus’ last act was as wildly defiant as it was brave and courageous.

Sirius nodded, a hand on his cheek, and pushed him towards the lifeboat. Regulus sat beside his mother, eyes never leaving Sirius.

“Alright, keep it coming,” the steward insisted, a hand on Sirius’ elbow.

Walburga saw it before Sirius took his next breath. “Get in the boat Sirius.”

He tugged his arm way from the steward and took a step backwards. “Enjoy a long, miserable life, Mother.”

“Sirius?” Walburga yelled, rising from her seat as Sirius disappeared into the crowd of frenzied passengers, weaving his way toward the stairwell to third class. Regulus held her down by the hem of her coat, and Cordelia kept a hand on her skirt. “Sirius! Sirius!”

Two lefts. Down the hall. Right.

He would save Remus. He would love Remus.

Sirius had to believe it.

When the water reached his shoes, Remus shimmied his handcuffs up the metal pole so he could stand on a chair. That worked well enough, until the water rose higher and lifted the metal legs off the floorboards, sending Remus tumbling into the frigid water. He was swiftly reminded of the holes in his shoes as the water slithered into their soles and bit at his toes.

“Shit,” Remus swore, dancing in the water as if it would somehow keep his feet dry. He tried to hobble up on the chair again, but it was no use and he was thrown into the water, smashing his face against the pole on his way down. Remus recoiled as his fingers brushed his cheeks, sure he would have a brilliant black and blue eye to match Snape’s by morning, if he made it that far. Banging his handcuffs against the pole, Remus gave it one, last futile attempt. “Fuck! Hello? Is anyone there? Hello?”

He waited. The rising water gurgled, laughing at him.

Even back in England, it had never occurred to him to write a will. It’s not like Remus had much to leave behind, anyways. But now, he supposed, he should have at least taken the time to write a letter to his mother, so she could hold onto a piece of paper he touched, a talisman inscribed with his messy, loopy handwriting, just a little bit of proof that Remus had existed once. He had walked this Earth, he had traveled the world, he had lived as true a life as he could.

When he first arrived in Europe, he had diligently written once a week and enclosed his favorite drawing he had made during that time. Remus used to tell himself that he was only writing to keep her sane, but now, he realized, as he was about to die cold and alone, he was writing for himself, too. A way to keep up with his past while living in the present, dreaming of the future. A way to connect the dots from who he used to be, who he was, and who he wanted to be. It was his way of documenting a life well-lived.

But now? No one would know how he died. His name was not on the Titanic ledger. His body would be bloated and decomposed by a frenzy of fish in just a few hours. His existence would be wiped from this Earth.

No one would remember his mistakes. No one would remember his success. He was destined to be a ghost, just a shadow hidden against the ground on a cloudy day, forgotten.

If he could write to his mother now, what would he say? That he was sorry for stealing the ticket to board Titanic in the first place, probably. That he was sorry for not writing more. That he wished he could see her face, feel her warm, frail embrace just once more.

But then, Remus realized it was a lie.

He wasn’t sorry for stealing his ticket. He wasn’t sorry for boarding the Titanic. He wasn’t sorry about lying his way through every day of his damned life.

He wasn’t sorry for any of it, because somehow, in the midst of the chaos and chivalry and calamari, he had found Sirius. The Titanic had given him a chance at love, no matter how fleeting it may have been. It wasn’t just in the way their lips moved together or how perfect their hips had aligned in the back seat of that car. It was in the way Sirius’ eyes crinkled when he laughed, when he was truly happy, and in the way his hand clasped around Remus’, promising he’d never let go. Remus was chained to the pole because of Sirius, the water brushing his ankles because of Sirius, the cold hands of the ocean clamping around him like a coffin because of Sirius.

And it was okay. Because Sirius Black was worth dying for.

Two lefts. Down the hall. Right.

Two lefts. Down the hall. Right.

Two lefts. Down the hall. Right.

Sirius chanted the directions like an ancient hymn, as if the power of the words would be enough to lift the Titanic from the ocean and carry it to New York with delicate wings and careful hands. He fought his way through the hallways and corridors, squeezing in the tiny crevices between people flooding the stairwells, running to have a chance at surviving. Sirius was carried with the crowd, taking one step forward and falling three steps backwards, a chorus of yelling and crying piercing his ears, drowning out his grunts of frustration.

He clawed at the people in front of him, shoving them aside by the lapels of their jackets and the collars of their dresses, teeth clenched together, animalistic in his disregard.

“Let me through!” He demanded, no time to apologize or cringe under scathing stares.

The ship pitched again, jerking right as passengers fell against the wall, their sense of urgency renewed as they scrambled up the stairs. Sirius struggled to stay on his feet, wild eyes searching for a faster route. It was only a matter of time before the lowest level of the ship was bursting with water.

An elevator would have to do.

The attendant stood beside the iron bars, escorting the last of his tenants from the lift and refusing his services to a couple trying to argue with him in Italian.

“The lifts are closed, you’ll have to use the stairs,” the attendant tried to explain, gesturing across the hall. The couple continued to argue, even when Sirius pushed them out of the way, eyes locked on the elevator controls. “Sir, the lifts are closed–”

“Do I look like I give a fuck?” Sirius shouted, shoving the man into the lift and closing the metal gate behind him. “Take me to the E Deck. Now!”

Scrambling with the lever, the man did as he was told, not willing to find out what kind of punch Sirius could muster behind his intimidating glare. Sirius was sure there wasn’t a slower elevator in the history of elevators, but at least he didn’t have to fight his way through hordes of terrified people. He counted the floors as they descended, first the B-Deck, then C, then D. As they approached the E-Deck, Sirius thought something sounded wrong, but naively begged himself to believe it was just the tired wires of the elevator. By now, he was well accustomed to the sound of rushing water.

As soon as they could see the bland, white hallways snaking through the lowest floor of the Titanic, water rushed into the elevator, soaking their feet and pulling the lift under its weight. The attendant gasped, hauling on the level, and sent the elevator crawling back towards safety.

“We have to go back up!” He cried, clawing at the walls to try and escape the frigid water.

Sirius had never felt such a sharp pain exploding around his legs. It was just as Remus had promised; a million needles jamming into his skin, stabbing him without warning. It was so cold that Sirius almost couldn’t think for a second, as if his brain had short circuited at the first bite of the water, and he watched the lift slide upwards, forgetting why he had commandeered it in the first place.

He threw open the metal gate, wrestling with the clasp, and slid out feet first towards the waterlogged floor, narrowly avoiding a swift decapitation as the elevator glided to the next floor. The attendant shouted at him, begging him to stop, but his pleas were drowned by Sirius shriek as the knee-deep water tore at his body with vicious fangs.

“Shit! Okay, okay. Left.”

As Regulus promised, there was a hallway to his left, nondescript and empty, the water lapping at the walls and peeling the paper from the plaster. Sirius trudged forward, trying his best to run against the ocean refusing to move out of his way. When he reached an intersection, Sirius swallowed, three options in front of him.

“Left,” he nodded, using a pipe to hurl himself around the corner and continue on. Above him, the lights flickered, once, twice, three times, but the lightbulbs held steady, the filament not quite ready to burst. How different these hallways looked now, without the vivacious glow of Remus trailing behind him, only the bitter reflection of his disheveled appearance below him to keep him company.

Sirius followed Regulus’ directions, careening down the hall, trying to ignore his bones aching and his muscles protesting as he eyed the water level rising steadily. He reached the last juncture and turned right, but balked.

He stood at the threshold of a final hallway, with no indication of where to go, where to turn, what door to throw open. Sirius panted with the effort, grasping the wall to keep his feet under him, chest tightening knowing the clock was only ticking faster.

“Remus!” Sirius shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth. He waited. Nothing. Down the other side of the hallway, he tried again. “Remus!”

Tears pricked the corners of his eyes as he bit his lip, looking left, then right, then left again. He grunted as he split left, navigating around a floating piece of luggage blocking his way, banging on the walls. “Remus! Remus!”

Remus’ eyes had fallen closed. Maybe if he didn’t watch the water pour from underneath the door, death could creep up on him like a whimsical memory instead of standing over his shoulder waiting for him to succumb. He sat crouched on the face of a desk that had floated towards him, allowing him to find refuge out of the water for at least a little while. His wrists stung from the ugly, red welts throbbing underneath the metal handcuffs, and his shoulders shook from the advancing cold.

He tried to think of something – anything – to distract himself from his impending fate, so he pictured Sirius, drawing his figure in invisible charcoal. The curve of his back as he sat in a lifeboat, curled against the cold and trying to shield his ears from the cacophony of screams. His hands, pressed to his lips, blowing hot air into his palms. His eyelashes falling onto his cheeks, eye downcast at the floor, as he waded through his life, trying not to drown under the expectations.

Remus thought of his voice, all flowing velvet with its soft timbre whispering in his ear, echoing around his head. _Draw me. Make love to me. Take me home._ He smiled at the memory.

“Remus!”

Yes, it sounded just like that. A little guttural when he was excited. A little breathless when he was aroused. It was a record Remus would put on the gramophone and play over and over and over, until the grooves wore thin and the needle jumped off the vinyl.

“Remus!”

This was not a record. This was not a memory. This was real.

“Sirius?” Remus called, muddled in confusion, eyes wide open. Had he already died? Had he made it to the other side?

“Remus, where are you?” The voice yelled, followed by a series of banging sounds that vibrated the walls.

Clanging the handcuffs against the pipe with all his strength, Remus nearly toppled from the desk in his haste. “I’m here! Sirius, I’m in here! Here!”

There was a moment of hesitation outside the door, then frantic splashing, the water parting down the hallway like the Red Sea. Remus could hear heavy, labored breathing amidst the splashing, grunts of effort growing closer.

“Remus?”

More handcuff banging. “Sirius! Sirius!”

The doorknob jiggled as someone pushed on the face, struggling against the resistance of the water. A moment later, Sirius was standing in front of him.

“Remus!” He exclaimed, tripping through the water and pushing aside floating debris to get across the room, throwing his hands on Remus, on his face, on his shoulders, on his waist. Sirius pressed a thousand kisses to his lips, resting their foreheads together while he tried to catch his breath. Remus breathed him in; the smoke, the musky fragrance, the stench of fear and terror and longing wafting from his skin.

“Sirius,” Remus sighed, doing his best to embrace him with two hands pinned beside him. “God, Sirius, I … Sirius.” He couldn’t find another word that could accurately sum up how grateful he was to see Sirius just once more before he died. A person’s name can be so beautiful, slipping off the right tongue.

Sirius kissed him again, deep and bruising, before he sprung into action. “We need to get out of here. Where’s the key?” He tugged at Remus’ handcuffs, as if Remus hadn’t ripped his skin open trying to break the chain.

Remus shook his head. “I don’t know. Check the desk, maybe?”

Sirius tore away, ripping drawers open and dumping their contents out in the water. Pieces of stray paper and pencils floated towards the hallway. Remus couldn’t quite see the contents of each drawer, but, judging by Sirius’ face, there wasn’t a key to be seen.

“There’s nothing here. Regulus said it was silver,” Sirius cried, rustling through the last of the drawers. He glanced around the room, trying to find something to break the handcuffs, but a coat rack and a lamp weren’t going to help much. “I have to get help.”

Remus flinched at the way Sirius’ voice broke, how his glassy eyes reflected in the water below. “Hurry.” As Sirius made for the door, Remus couldn’t help but think how lucky he was to see Sirius just one more time. He wasn’t sure how much longer his luck would hold out. “Sirius!” He stopped. “Thank you for coming back.”

Sirius ran to him, kicking up water that bit into his skin, and pressed a last frantic kiss to Remus’ lips. “I’m getting you out of here. I promise.”

“I’ll wait here,” Remus nodded, laughing at his own terrible joke until the water rose higher as the boat groaned, slipping deeper into the ocean.

His muscles screamed and his chest was on fire, but Sirius wasn’t about to let up. He tore through the water, clawing at the wall to keep his balance. His lips stung with the promise of Remus beneath them. Sirius did it. He found Remus. But it still wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough, and Sirius had no time left to make it enough.

“Help! Someone, I need help!” He shouted down the hallway, knowing full well he was alone.

Following the signs to the nearest staircase, Sirius climbed the stairs three by three, grateful to be out of the water for at least a few minutes. D-Deck was just as empty, the water licking the walls echoing down the hall. Fuck.

Leaning against a door, Sirius tipped his head back, gulping as much air as he could. “Hello? Please! I need help!”

Nothing.

There were two thousand people on board the Titanic, and not a single one had lingered. At least the third-class passengers seemed to have a few more brain cells than the vapid aristocrats huddling inside.

“Fuck,” Sirius whispered, pushing his hair out of his face. “You have to do this. You can do this.”

He set off down the hall, throwing open doors, hopeful he could find just one person lagging behind in their cabin. Naturally, there was no such thing. Around him, the ship continued to settle, unnerving groans and creaks echoing as the metal hull fought against the ocean. What were the odds a passenger left behind a pair of bolt cutters? Unsurprisingly, not very high.

The tenth room Sirius fell into was in a state of wild disarray, long dresses and overcoats strewn across the floor and luggage overturned against the wall. Definitely not a place for bolt cutters.

But a perfect place to find a sharp hair pin. It would have to do.

Sirius turned to slingshot back out into the hallway when the lights flickered again. Once, twice, and then nothing but black. He waited a moment, willing one thing – just one thing – to go right, but to no avail.

“Good thing you aren’t scared of the dark,” he mumbled to himself, as if trying to convince himself as much. Sirius was used to the long, monstrous shadows thrown in the moonlight back home at the Black estate. Years ago, Regulus used to sneak into his room in the middle of the night and slip beside him in bed, covering his head with the blankets to hide from the monsters. The dark had never scared Sirius.

The prospect of not making it back to Remus petrified him.

Sirius dragged his hand along the wall to keep in a straight line, narrowing his eyes and using the occasional electrical spark as the filaments in the lightbulbs blew to guide him down the hall.

“Just find the stairs,” he said, trying to calm his rapidly beating heart. “Just find the stairs.”

It proved to be an almost insurmountable challenge. He couldn’t remember how far he had run down the hallway, and no matter how hard he peered into the darkness, he could only make out vague, shadowy figures that couldn’t possibly guide him. Sirius smacked his head into a wall in front of him, cringing at the pain radiating from him skull but grateful he had made it to the end of the hallway. He shuffled his feet around the corner, feeling around for the stairs, exhaling as he felt the first drop.

“Fuck yes–!” Sirius’ enthusiasm didn’t last long as the water lapped at his feet, encroaching halfway up the staircase. He’d be swimming to get back to Remus, fully encased by the frigid water, with just inches of air near the ceiling to spare. Tightly grasping onto the hair pin, Sirius steeled himself for the dive, trying to remember the feeling of his warm linens and flushed cheeks for later.

With baited breath, Sirius dove head first into the water, clearing the threshold of the stairwell and surfacing amidst the E-Deck hallway. He sputtered, shrieking at the cold, a hundred knives lodging themselves into his body. It was a pain like no other, but it would be incomparable to the agony of losing Remus when he had already come so far.

Never feeling so grateful for all those horrid swimming lessons when he was a boy, Sirius made his way down the hall, wincing as the water splashed against his skin, already feeling his bones quiver under his weary muscles. The lights still flickered down here, just enough for Sirius to count the doors and realize he couldn’t remember where Remus was locked because they all looked the same.

“Remus!” He called, sputtering at the water seeping into his mouth. “Where are you?”

“This one!” Sirius heard down the hall and to his right, circling his arms in large strokes to close the distance. The lifejacket made him buoyant, at least. He wrestled with the door, protesting loudly against the swell of the water, and forced his way in.

Remus was crouched on top of the desk now, desperately keeping away from the rising water, and as Sirius splashed over to him, his face softened, together again at last. His body stiffened at Sirius apparent lack of weapons to free him from his chains. “You didn’t find anything?”

Sirius spit water from his mouth and held up the hair pin. “It’s all I need.”

Remus raised one eyebrow skeptically as Sirius waded over, stabbing the pin this way and that in the keyhole adjoining his wrists. It rattled and clinked against the metal, but wasn’t giving.

“It’s not going to work,” Remus whispered, but Sirius remained undeterred, clenching his teeth together and jabbing the pin harder. He felt the water creeping up to his waist, licking at his belt and teasing his hips. It had to work. There wasn’t another option.

Sirius jammed and jiggled and prodded the pin every which way, holding his ear close to the lock, ignoring the water and trying desperately to keep Remus’ hope from slipping between his fingers.

“Sirius–”

“It’s going to work!” he growled, fingers shaking with the strain, punctuating each word with a stab. “Fuck! Just! Fucking! Open!”

It was like magic, but completely underwhelming.

The handcuffs clicked open without any fanfare, the metal giving way with such a small sound that Sirius almost didn’t notice it over the gurgle of the water kissing his rib cage. It was so sudden that Sirius would have fit right in with a group of traveling magicians.

Sirius screamed, ripping the cuffs off Remus, and was immediately engulfed in a bone-shattering embrace, a thousand kisses peppered across his jaw, his cheeks, his lips. He held Remus as tightly against his body as he could with the lifejacket, burying his nose in his neck, thanking the constellation of scars across his skin that Remus was breathing, alive, and oh so beautiful.

“I’m going to love you so hard when we get out of here,” Remus promised, cupping Sirius’ cheeks with two hands and kissing him again.

“I can’t wait,” Sirius said breathlessly, “but right now we have to go.”

Remus jumped from the desk and into the water, screeching as his body reacted to the knives splicing into his skin. “Shit, that’s cold! Shit!”

Sirius collected his rough hand and tugged Remus behind him, pushing aside a floating chair to make it to the door.

They stumbled into the hall, fighting for every step against the pull of the ocean, shivering and wincing against the splash of the water. Sirius pointed towards the stairs just as the Titanic rocked, metal crunching and groaning as the ocean took it further towards the sea floor, prompting a roaring wave to rush down the passageway, its white teeth aimed straight for the two boys.

“C’mon!” Sirius cried, splashing frantically towards a different stairwell, hearing Remus cough and sputter behind him, not quite sure how to maneuver around in the water.

“No!” Remus yelled, tugging Sirius’ shirt. “This way!” He waded further down the hallway, pulling himself along using the wall, using the rush of the wave to propel himself around the corridor, where the water had begun to thin out. The boys regained the use of their legs and sprinted hand in hand, the water lapping at their shins no match. It was a hallway Remus knew well, never more grateful for Room 121 Section M and the staircase right beside it.

Remus jumped up the stairs, but Sirius stalled.

“Wait!” He stood still, eyes narrowed on some indeterminate point in front of him, before Sirius wheeled around and threw open the door to Remus’ cabin.

Two tear-stained faces stared back at him, nestled together on the bed, surrounded by blankets that would do no good against the encroaching cold. James blinked, Lily’s lip quivering as she held her stomach with two strong arms.

“What are you doing?” Sirius asked, falling into the room. Remus stepped in behind him, confusion painted in the creases of his face.

James shrugged a painful, hopeless gesture. “The gates are locked. I’ve tried every passage I know and the stewards aren’t letting steerage to the deck. So…we’re waiting.”

“There has to be another way,” Remus insisted weakly, not having the courage to look at Lily, who had already come to terms with her death.

“We’re not going to make it,” James said, glancing beside him at Lily, and then to Remus and Sirius. Cabin 121 was about to become a gravesite for four unlikely misfits plus an honorary guest.

Sirius marched into the room, excavated Lily from her coffin of blankets, and gestured to the door. “Either you’re walking out of here on your own or I’m carrying you. We aren’t dying in here.”

“You’re not listening–!” Lily argued, pulling her blankets back.

“I don’t care if every gate is locked. I don’t care if the water is cold and you’re too tired to move. I don’t care if this ship goes down, but we are not dying. Not today,” Sirius declared, staring at James and waiting with baited breath to see if his rallying cry resonated. “I didn’t push my brother out to sea, tell my mother to fuck off, and swim through the goddamn Arctic Ocean just to die in a room with rat shit on the floor. I don’t know about you, but I have too much to live for.”

James held out his hand towards Lily, eyes on her small bump. “If we’re gonna die, let’s go out as heroes, huh?” There was a new sense of urgency in the air; maybe they could do this – live, and not die. Dying was easy, and god knows Lily Evans refused to do anything the easy way.

“We can carry you if you need–” Remus offered.

She slid out of the bed, and pulled the laces of her dress tighter around her chest. “I am perfectly capable of rescuing myself, thank you very much.” Lily patted her belly. “Harry’s gonna need a kick-ass mom, after all.”

Remus looked at James. “Harry?”

“James Junior finally lost,” he shrugged, pulling Lily past Remus and Sirius and up the stairs. “The closest gate is this way.”

The first gate they came across was locked, the metal not anywhere close to budging, and Sirius had lost the hairpin back where Remus was tied. The second gate was swarmed with passengers, screaming and pushing against the bars, barricaded by a line of steadfast stewards who beat at the metal with a baton to ward people from rushing into it. There was no clear line of attack, so the group continued onwards, until they found a gate on the D-Deck, bumbling with a few desperate passengers and guarded by just a single officer.

Sirius pushed his way to the front, face to face with a defiant man whose hat was a little too big for his head. 

“Open the gate,” Sirius demanded, mustering as much authority as he could.

“We’re only accepting women at this time. You there! Come forward!” The steward called, pointing at Lily and waving her to the front of the line.

Lily clung to James’ side, refusing to budge. “I’m not going anywhere without you.”

James’ face dropped as he took her by the shoulders. “This is your chance. You have to go.”

“No-!”

“If not for me and not for you, then for him,” James insisted, his hand splaying on her stomach. Lily swallowed hard, realizing that she was running out of opportunities to save her baby. She kissed James hard on the mouth before he pushed her up the stairs, shoving the other passengers away to clear a path.

The steward unlocked the gate as Lily approached, slipping through the narrow opening. “Alright now, Miss, this way – Hey! Stop! Stop! Women and children only-!”

With two hands braced on either side of the gate, James pushed the metal aside, crying out to Sirius and Remus as the steward fought back. The two boys joined, and, bolstered by the passengers behind them, the metal barrier was ripped from the wall, toppling to the wayside and allowing a surge of stowaways to run for their freedom.

James collected Lily, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “You didn’t think I’d let you leave without me, did you?” She batted his arm and kissed him anyways.

“Let’s go!” Sirius urged as the other passengers flew by them.

“Stop! You’re under arrest!” The steward cried, reaching out to grab Sirius’ shirt. Before his fingers could curl around the fabric, Remus’ fist abruptly met his face with a satisfying punch in the mouth.

Sirius cackled over his shoulder, waving his fist in the air. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

Remus grinned, falling into stride next to him, and shook his hand out. “You’re a bad influence, Sirius Black.”

By the time they reached the promenade, it was nearly impossible to stand straight. The hull of the Titanic was creeping out of the water now, throwing passengers off the deck and into the water, in the crevices where the wooden floors had cracked in half, and against steel boilers and dislodged furniture. The last of the lifeboats were on their way to full capacity, the rafts that had already escaped floating just far enough away from the ship to watch hundreds of people die, but close enough to hear their screams, the cries of children as they were ripped from their fathers, the tearful goodbyes and see-you-soons that were just bitter lies coated in sugar.

Bracing against a wall, Sirius craned his head, unsure of where to go or what to do; only knowing that they had mere minutes before the Titanic was no more. Remus’ hand clasped his, but nothing could still his frantic heartbeat reverberating in his ears.

“We have to get to the front!” Remus urged, tugging Sirius’ shirt and struggling up the steep incline, using the rail to keep his feet under him. Sirius stumbled behind, blinking rapidly as if in a daze. The screaming was so loud. The air stank of death. The water cackled as it ate passenger after passenger. Sirius reeled and bent over the edge of the rail, his stomach churning in knots.

Remus took his face in both hands. “Stay with me, Sirius, alright? Look at me!” Sirius did. “We’re gonna make it.”

Nodding decisively, they continued to climb, James pushing Lily in front of him, slipping on the slick wood.

The deck was at once silenced as the Titanic bellowed, one last echoing shriek as the ocean delivered the death blow, water spilling onto the promenade and sending the boat careening beneath the surface of the water.

“Hurry!” Sirius cried, grasping for the rail. He looked behind him and reached out for Lily, but their fingers were separated by endless miles, and her feet were slipping from under her. “You can do it, c’mon!”

She couldn’t.

Lily made one last attempt to grab Sirius’ fingers, lurching forward, but missed. The gravity of the boat took her backwards, sliding down the deck and towards the icy water, one hand reaching for James, the other protecting her baby.

“James!” Remus shouted, watching helplessly as James slid with Lily and disappeared amidst the crowd of passengers frantically kicking away at the ocean, as if they had any choice in the matter.

Sirius couldn’t erase the look in her eyes, frozen in terror, realizing, not for the first time but certainly the last, that her baby would never know this world. That she loved fiercely and fought with every fiber of her being. That it wasn’t enough.

As the boat tipped to a dangerous vertical angle, Sirius ushered Remus to the rail of the bow, climbing up and over the barrier with a practiced finesse. They pressed against the cold metal, looking down at what once was the beautiful promenade, where people desperately clung onto whatever they could find, suspending in mid-air as they tried to keep their grip. One by one, passengers’ fingers slipped, sending them freefalling farther down the ship, smashing back against iron boilers and other railings. Sirius could hear their bones breaking, their voices falling silent, and he wondered if falling – a quick death, if he did it right – was a better option than waiting for his blood to freeze his heart.

“I guess now is a good time to learn how to swim,” Remus quipped, eyes frozen wide at the ocean below them. He was shaking, and it wasn’t from the cold.

Sirius took one look at the water, took one look at Remus, and unbuckled his lifejacket, fumbling to get the straps unknotted as the boat slipped faster and faster underneath the black waves. He pushed it towards Remus, scrambling to shove his arms through the holes.

“Put it on!”

“But you–”

“Just do it!”

There was no time for chivalry when they were just seconds away from plunging to their certain deaths. At least Remus would float on the surface and his body could be recovered for his parents to bury. Sirius didn’t want to be buried. He’d rather sink to the bottom of the ocean. Maybe he’d be eaten by a shark.

Remus secured the jacket over his chest, pulling at the buckles and bracing against the railing. The ocean was looming closer. 

“Hey!” Sirius cried, fighting to raise his voice over the screaming chaos below him. He gestured to the railing. “This is where it all started.”

“Nice night for a walk,” Remus echoed, trying on a small smile amidst the turmoil. It wasn’t enough to instill any hope in his lungs, so he grasped Sirius’ hand, pressing it against his lips. “No matter what happens, I love you.”

The words stole Sirius’ breath, his lungs forgetting how to function correctly, and his body was instantly warm with white-hot fire. Remus just smiled at him, that little crooked, lopsided grin that was tender and panicked, hurrying through his goodbyes because he didn’t think he would ever get another hello. Sirius clutched his fingers.

“I love you,” Sirius replied, shouting over the roar of the ocean devouring the Titanic. The time for sentimental goodbyes was over. It was time to survive. “Listen to me, Remus. As soon as we hit the water, kick as hard as you can, okay? Don’t stop kicking. And don’t let go of my hand!"

The ocean was just meters away now, white waves gurgling as it swallowed the ship. Around them, people fell into the water, but Sirius didn’t see them return to the surface.

He was going to die. Not by the hands of his mother. Not by the grace of Cordelia. Sirius estimated that he had time for three more thoughts until he drowned.

He thought of Regulus. Desperately afraid and perpetually trapped and alive.

He thought of Cordelia. Beautifully puzzling and finally free and alive.

He thought of Remus. Loved fiercely and admired endlessly and alive, goddamnit

And then the Titanic submerged, taking Sirius and Remus with it, the unsinkable ship falling to the ocean floor, the ship of dreams dissolved into the melancholic melody of a massacre.


	11. Part XI

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me on Tumblr @simplysirius for more ficlets, sneak peaks, and fanart! I also take requests :)  
> See the end notes for my big mushy thank you for your dedication to this fic.

The ocean was black.

Sirius was alone.

Remus was gone.

His eyes burned against the salt water, peering into the darkness. Sirius could just make out the shape of the Titanic beneath him, sinking faster and faster towards the bottom of the ocean. Clawing towards the surface, Sirius kicked his legs as hard as he could, willing himself to make it to the wave break before his lungs gave out. The pull of the ship threw him backwards, sending Sirius swirling down into the endless abyss, hope slipping out of his fingertips.

It would be so much easier to give up. Give in to the water and drift down to the soft sand. But he had Remus. If Sirius was going to keep Remus safe, he needed to make it to the surface.

Gritting his teeth and releasing a few bubbles to calm his aching chest, Sirius thrashed against the ocean current, spreading his arms wide and willing his body higher and higher. He tore through the water, a renewed rage in his battle against the tide, letting the air drain from his lungs to propel him faster. There was no time to consider the temperature of the water, how his muscles felt paralyzed and taut under the skin, how his body hardly felt like his own any more.

Sirius could see the surface now, fuzzy and bathed in bright moonlight beneath the rippling waves, and fought to keep his body moving forward. He had run out of oxygen and was running on borrowed time, his chest contracting and nose on the brink of inhaling a bucket of water. Reeling a little from the growing throb of his head, Sirius begged his body to hold on just a little longer. A few more stroke to the top. A few more seconds before he could find Remus.

When they were younger, Sirius and Regulus would have breath holding contests in the pool at their summer estate. Regulus always won, even when Sirius made a serious effort to come out on top. He nearly drowned once, but he almost beat Reg, so it would have been worth it.

Drowning was nothing like he thought it was. Shakespeare made it seem so poetic. Ophelia runs to the river and gets swept away, hair fanning around her, flowers laced in her fingers. A beautiful death amidst the chaos. Drowning was not poetic. Drowning was slow and laborious, a difficult task even at the most opportune of times.

Sirius felt his muscles contract and his lungs lurch into his throat. With the next stroke of his arm, his body was finished, and his mouth fell open, allowing the water to sting his tongue and scratch at the back of his throat. At the same time, oxygen whistled through his nose as he broke the surface, inflating his chest and thawing his body.

He gasped, flailing in the water before he could get his bearings, doing whatever he could to stay afloat.

As it turns out, death is loud. Hundreds of people around him screamed an endless dissonance that pierced his eardrums. They begged the lifeboats to turn around, begged their gods to welcome them at the gates, begged for help that would never come. The cacophony of voices echoed in the still night, startling the fish and rustling the stars, who watched helplessly above.

Sirius spit, ridding his mouth of water, and spun to his left and right. “Remus! Remus!”

The night was dark, but the splashing waves were stark white, impeding Sirius’ vision and leaving him lost without direction. There seemed to be less splashing to his left, so Sirius went right, paddling into the thick of the crowd. He navigated around one man floating on top of the water, eyes glassy and frozen over, and pulled himself along using the backs of lifejackets.

“Remus! Remus-!”

Before Sirius knew what happened, there were hands in his hair and around his shoulders. For a split second, he thought it was Remus, pulling him into a warm embrace. But then Sirius found himself underwater again, gasping as the ocean leaked into his lungs at the sudden plunge. There were legs wrapping around his waist, using him like a buoy to stay afloat, and no matter how hard he thrashed, the assailant held steady, fear proving to be a stronger adhesive than glue.

And then, as soon as he was thrown beneath the water, a pair of hands clawed at his shirt and pulled him to the surface, the accoster thrown from his body and back into the crowd.

“Sirius! You have to swim, come on!” Remus cried, holding the limp man underneath his arms, trying to wipe the water from his eyes.

“Remus?” He coughed, his stomach violently rejecting the saltwater pouring down his throat.

“Hurry, come on!”

Not quite sure how to navigate in his bulky lifejacket, Remus struggled towards the outskirts of the crowd, one hand clutching Sirius’ collar, the other combing through the water in jerky strokes. Remus was like a dog who hadn’t quite grasped the concept of swimming yet. Sirius tried to help tow them along, but his eyes were searing from the salt and he was still desperately trying to catch his breath.

“Look for something to float on,” Sirius choked, “I can’t see anything.”

Blinded, Sirius felt the frantic splashing slowly fade around him, but every so often, his shoulder would bump into objects that felt far too much like frozen human hair and skin for his liking.

“Here!” Remus shouted, guiding him towards a large floating wooden object. Sirius felt along the edges and pushed Remus up first, grunting with the effort. While his body was out of the frigid water, the air provided Remus no reprieve, biting into his skin and stealing his breath in wispy tendrils of steam.

Resting his elbows on the wood, Sirius wiped at his eyes, blinking as the world slowly came into focus. He saw the stars, looking down at the hundreds of tortured souls with quiet pity, the moon drooping in the sky, unwilling to watch the massacre. When he turned, Remus was staring back at him, trembling fingers latched onto the edge of the wood, his lips faintly blue but still managing a wavering grin.

“I told you we’d make it,” Sirius whispered, resting his hand on Remus’ head and burying his fingers in the mop of frozen curls.

Remus carefully readjusted himself on the door, nearly tipping back into the water but balancing at the last second. “You have to get on this too, c’mon.”

Sirius looked at the flotation device skeptically. “I don’t think it would hold.”

“You should go find something, then. You need to get out of the water.” By the pucker of his lips, Sirius could tell that Remus was secretly begging him not to leave. Instead of finding refuge elsewhere, he cupped Remus’ chin.

“I thought we already established I’m not going anywhere,” Sirius murmured, his teeth chattering and his head twitching with every labored breath.

Remus’ frozen skin broke into a smile, the memories of that fateful first night trying desperately to keep his heart warm.

Sirius stubbornly refused to give in. “We made it this far. We can make it a little longer. The boats will come back.” As he finished the sentence, he raised his eyes towards the life boats, which only seemed to paddle further and further away from the cries for help. He pretended not to notice.

Remus shook his head remorsefully. He wasn’t able to keep up the game anymore. They had lost. They were going to die here. This was the end.

“I love you. Until my last breath, I’ll always love you,” Remus whispered, the words catching in his throat as his body trembled and his blood slowed in his veins.

Sirius clasped their hands together, kissing Remus’ knuckles, his cheeks, his nose, with cracked lips. “I love you. You are worth dying for, Remus Lupin, and I don’t regret a single moment of loving you.”

They pressed their foreheads together, twitching erratically as the cold seeped into their bones and slowly froze every fiber of their bodies, waiting for the ice to crawl up their veins and break their hearts just once more.

“We have to go back.”

“They’ll swarm the boat. We can’t.”

“You’d rather sit here and listen to them die?”

“You don’t understand–”

“We’re going back.” Regulus stared at the steward holding the oar, his eyes burning with such a murderous fervor that even Walburga was proud. Surveying his lifeboat and the other three that floated nearby, Regulus pointed to each dinghy. “Half of you go in this boat, the other half in this boat.”

The steward loomed in front of him, gritting his teeth. “You have no authority here-!”

“Either you clear this boat, or I’m throwing you overboard first,” Regulus threatened, his urgency only growing as the sound of distant screaming fell quieter and quieter each passing second.

He would never be able to erase the image of the Titanic slipping under the water. It was tattooed inside his skull, on the backs of his eyelids, in the bulbous folds of his brain. Regulus wasn’t an idiot. He wouldn’t be able to save everybody in this stupid little lifeboat, not even a fraction of the passengers desperately flailing in the water. But he needed to try. At least just to say that he did. Regulus Black, the new heir to the Black name and the failed hero who tried to find his brother in a sea of dead bodies.

Regulus’ threat – and his hands perfectly positioned to attack – had enough of an impact on the steward. Bodies were distributed into different boats, Snape and Lockhart in one, Walburga and Cordelia in another, until only he and two crewmen remained.

“Lower the oars,” the steward commanded. Regulus obliged, taking hold of one of the wooden paddles and rowing in time with the other mate beside him.

There was no preparing for what Regulus saw next. He knew what they would find – dead bodies piled on top of one another, men, women, and children draped over each other like ice sculptures without the grace or tranquility – but the first time his oar made contact with a face frozen in agony was enough to make him wretch over the side of the boat. His grip on the oar tightened as he desperately searched the crowd, looking for any sign of life, any shallow breath, any face that shared his narrow nose and pouted lips.

“Is anybody alive out there?” The steward shouted, cupping a hand around his mouth while the other held a flashlight, scanning the bodies.

If Regulus squinted his eyes and didn’t think too much, it was almost as if passengers were merely asleep in the ocean, covered in blankets of white, bobbing along until the sunrise thawed their bodies and welcomed them to a new day.

“Hello! Can anyone hear me?”

Every person that passed by Regulus was lifeless. The man in a fine black suit; dead. The woman hardly clothed in rags; dead. The man with glasses holding his wife to his chest, their hands encircling her enlarged stomach; dead.

Regulus resisted the tears that pricked his eyes, refusing to let the droplets of water freeze on his cheeks. “We waited too long!” He growled at the steward. “We could have saved them!”

“Just keep checking!” The steward bit back, the reality of his arrogance breaking his voice.

The further they waded into the crowd, the harder Regulus’ jaw clenched. They had yet to find a single living soul. The air stank of ice and death and guilt, prompting his stomach to lodge in his throat once again.

Selfishly, Regulus found himself a little relived. He was surrounded by death, but Sirius was nowhere to be seen.

Sirius knocked at Death’s door. Once, twice, three times. Standing on the stoop, rocking on the balls of his feet, rubbing his hands on his arms in a fleeting attempt to generate some heat. Hell was supposed to be hot, wasn’t it? Fuck, it was cold. He waited and waited, knocking again with all his strength, throwing his body against the door, without answer.

So, he was left to wait.

He blinked slowly at Remus, watching his chest rise and fall in labored, shallow breaths, hair plastered to his face like a cast. Sirius tried to mumble a quiet tune, the same sad melody he discovered on the piano, but his throat was raw and it hurt to speak.

The night had grown quiet. What once was a cacophony of cataclysmic chorus was now a quiet orchestra of one. Above him, the stars kept Sirius and Remus silent company, twinkling brightly and promising a world beyond this one. Sirius wondered what it looked like – a new life. White-hot, he hoped, with the heat of a thousand suns beating on his skin and maybe even a nice cup of tea waiting for him.

A splash of light hit his face, and for just a second, Sirius thought it was a shooting star. A final wish before he died, perhaps. He closed his eyes and let the words form on his lips, a single, silent hope sent towards the sky; the only obvious thing he could have possibly wished for – to stay with Remus in the afterlife, wherever it is they might end up. But upon closer inspection, it wasn’t a shooting star at all.

It was a boat. A floating, real-life, goddamn boat.

“Hello!” Someone yelled as the beam of light traveled over frozen faces.

Sirius turned to Remus, shaking his shoulders violently. “Remus, wake up, there’s a boat!”

Remus mumbled, not having the energy to muster a real response.

“Help!” Sirius croaked, but his voice had been stolen to the water, leaving a weak, crackling squawk behind. He swallowed thickly and tried again. “Please!” Hardly anything.

Spinning around in the water, Sirius searched for something – anything – that could be of use to grab their attention, but they were largely alone on the outskirts of the pack, and the boat would be long gone by the time Sirius swam towards the nearest body.

Sirius pressed his lips to Remus’ forehead, mouthing the words into his hair. “I’ll be right back. I promise. Don’t go anywhere.”

He ventured farther away from the door, splashing about, clawing at the water for another piece of debris, maybe, and his body shook with fear when there was nothing.

“Wait, stop!” A man urged, and the lifeboat stalled. All was quiet. “I thought I heard something.” The beam of light scanned around again, just skipping over Sirius. The oars were dipped back into the water as the boat continued on its way.

“Come back,” Sirius whispered, splashing his arm in the water. He splashed again and again, an all out assault, forcing enough noise to break across the surface of the ocean that the ripples lapped against the sides of the small lifeboat.

“There!” A second man yelled, and Sirius nearly fell to the bottom of the ocean when he recognized Regulus’ voice amidst the crowd. His beautiful, wonderful, heroic baby brother.

His breath came in fast pants but Sirius refused to stop splashing, even when the flashlight shined directly into his face as the boat came towards him faster and faster.

A pair of hands reached over and hauled him inside, a barrage of blankets surrounding him instantly. Their warmth was nothing compared to Regulus’ frantic embrace, clutching him to his chest with desperate hands. Sirius pushed away and tugged at the steward’s jacket, pointing frantically towards the door where Remus lay.

“Over there!” He cried hoarsely, “please, over there.”

The steward steered the boat in the direction of Sirius’ finger, sweeping the flashlight left and right until it landed on Remus and Sirius jumped, falling to the edge of the boat so quickly it nearly flipped. Together, the men lifted Remus from the door, gently lowering him to the deck and into Sirius’ awaiting arms.

Remus was deathly pale and his body twitched violently, as if it couldn’t decide whether to spasm and die or stay around for a while. Sirius curled their bodies together as Regulus barricaded them in layers of blankets, rocking Remus in his lap and crying quietly over him.

“Wake up, love,” Sirius rasped, “wake up.”

But Remus was tired, and suddenly, his body went very still.

Sirius’ tears stalled. He gently shook the boy in his arms. “Remus?” There was no response. “Remus, please.” Silence. Sirius’ eyes squeezed shut as his face pressed into the blankets, his arms gripping Remus’ body. He would never let go. “Please, please, please, Remus. Wake up, love.”

He felt a hand on his back, but it was too small and hesitant to belong to his lover. Regulus settled beside him, watching Sirius’ heart fall into the dark abyss of the ocean, the chambers filling with water and growing too heavy to stay afloat.

“Mhm?”

Sirius froze again. He straightened out and extracted himself from Remus’ body. When he opened his eyes, Remus was slowly blinking up at him, gentle breaths flooding Sirius’ cheeks.

A sob ripped through Sirius’ chest as he kissed Remus a thousand times, his shoulders racked with his cries, his mouth agape as a silent wail tore into his body. Remus could only watch, body still too cold to move, confused. How had he made it into a boat? Was that Regulus? Was he alive?

In the end, it didn’t matter. Sirius and Remus were together, and that’s all that really mattered.

The Titanic was all anyone would talk about for months. It was splashed on the cover of every newspaper, discussed on every radio broadcast, talked about in every bar on the planet. An unfathomable disaster that could have been prevented, should the White Star Line have ensured enough lifeboats to accommodate each passenger. The unsinkable ship deteriorating at the bottom of the ocean. The ship of dreams waking up to a grievous nightmare.

The men that took Sirius and Remus from the water found four other bodies still clinging to life. Some years later, when he closed his eyes, sometimes all Sirius could hear was their chattering teeth and quivering prayers, trembling bodies jolting the boat this way and that.

Sirius didn’t remember much about the rest of that night. He remembered holding Remus, never letting his grip falter, shielding his body from the cold. He remembered falling in and out of consciousness, his shoulders supported by Regulus, shivering beside him. He remembered dawn breaking over the horizon, painting the sky a swath of orange and yellow, the gentle tendrils of the sun tickling his face and greeting him with a soft kiss. The lifeboats had congregated together, a motley crew of survivors that waited for their fate with baited breath.

The image of the Carpathia steaming towards them was something like a phantom appearing from the mist. Once on board, the survivors were tended to with warm kettles of tea and bowls of soup, still separated by class but bonded by their shared experience. It was a chaotic scene, the rescued desperately searching for their husbands, their wives, their children, who would never be found.

Tucked away in the corner of a sitting room, Sirius held Remus near the hearth of a crackling fire, tending to the welts from the handcuffs and carefully drying his curls. Remus raised a tired hand to stop him from fussing, but Sirius refused to relent. Behind them, Regulus set down a freshly brewed kettle and cleared his throat.

“I’m going to check on Mother,” he announced, if but a bit sheepishly. Sirius nodded, casting aside the bandages to find Regulus’ tentative eyes. “What should I tell her?”

“You never found me.” His answer was immediate, but Regulus understood. Then, his resolve wavered. “Where will you go?”

“I’ve never been to New York before. I’d quite like to see the Statue of Liberty,” Regulus said, smiling like a little boy. He shrugged. “I’ll be eighteen next year, so I suppose back to England with Mother until then. After that, I’m not sure. What about you?”

Sirius cast a look down at Remus, who waited for his answer with baited breath. The orange glow of the flames danced on his pale skin, shining through his golden curls like a magnificent crown, reflecting in his honeyed eyes. It didn’t matter where Sirius went. He was already home. “I’ll be in Gryffindor.”

Remus grinned, blinking back hot tears, and nodded. He reached a hand out towards Regulus. “Thank you. For saving us. For everything.”

Regulus shook his hand and gestured towards Sirius. “I think you’re the one that did the saving. Good luck.” He ruffled Sirius’ hair, just because he knew he hated it, and slipped out of the room.

Sirius turned to look at Remus and caressed his cheek with a delicate thumb. “Thanks for not dying on me.”

“You’re welcome,” Remus laughed, wheezing at the effort. “What do we do now?”

“First, we break into this ship’s kitchen and steal all their whiskey, because holy shit do I need a drink,” Sirius smiled, closing the distance between their lips. “Then, we’re gonna dock in New York and you’re going to take me home.”

“And then?”

“And then I love you,” Sirius whispered, lips brushing against Remus. He kissed him tenderly, with all the promise of a kiss tomorrow, a kiss the next day, a kiss until the last day. “I have the rest of my life to love you, and I’m not going to waste a single moment of it doing anything else.”

_**Epilogue** _

Gryffindor was every bit as lovely as Remus had described. It was a small town, right outside Boston, with ancient maple trees shading the green grass and cobblestone streets that echoed in the lanes as horses clopped down the road. As they walked, Remus pointed at every building, reacquainting himself with the village and recalling past stories of drunken escapades and secret rendezvous. Sirius smiled and nodded in all the right places, appreciating the history lesson but focusing only on the light gleaming in Remus’ eyes, so bright and lively he almost had to squint. This was his new life now. And it was so beautiful.

As they made their way down the main drag, Remus’ voice fell quieter and quieter, each step met with more hesitation than the last, until it was Sirius who was leading, pulling him along the street.

“Wait,” Remus said, coming to a standstill. His eyes were locked on something beyond Sirius’, and he licked his lips nervously.

Lupin’s Sweet Shop loomed just down the block, the friendly red and yellow awnings and mouthwatering aroma of chocolate and sugar doing nothing to calm his nerves. The windows were bursting with colorful displays, bags of chocolate and artfully decorated cookies proudly displayed amidst jars of candy.

Sirius squeezed Remus’ hand. “You’re home, love.”

Remus nodded, not trusting his voice to speak without breaking. He inhaled a deep breath, pressed his fingers tighter around Sirius, and walked in the door.

A little bell chimed above them, welcoming them in. Behind the counter, his father had his back turned, diligently rolling out a thick sheet of cookie dough on the counter, his burly muscles flexing with the strain. Lyall was huskier than Remus remembered, the string of his apron pulled tightly around his body, and his hair had faded to a dull gray, but he still wore his bright red bowtie around his shirt. The same bowtie Remus had given him for Christmas when he was ten, bought with the money he made from delivering milk that autumn.

“Welcome to Lupin’s, what can I–” Lyall greeted, turning around and stopping in his tracks. The rolling pin in his hands clattered to the floor, and somewhere upstairs, a person stirred and ran down the steps.

“Is everything alright-?” Hope Lupin asked, hand clutched against her heart. She followed her husband’s frozen stare to where Remus stood, sheepishly fumbling with Sirius’ hand, unable to move.

Hope was the first to make a sound as she cried out, stumbling from the stairs and throwing herself into Remus’ body. He caught her uncertainly before melting into her embrace, nestling his face into the crook of her neck and holding her frail body tightly. He was taller now, and didn’t quite fit so perfectly in her arms anymore, but she held on all the same. Lyall shuffled from the counter and held his family, his own wet tears dripping onto Remus’ skin.

Sirius stood back in quiet awe. This is what a family looked like. What a family felt like. Warm. Fuzzy. Like no matter what happens, everything will be okay, because how could it not when you had a family to hold you?

“My baby, my baby,” Hope repeated endlessly, combing through Remus’ hair, running her hands over his shoulders, taking his fingers in hers.

“It’s nice to see you,” Lyall choked, trying to ignore the tears dripping down his face.

Remus sniffed, wiping his eyes on his sleeve, and smiled. He suddenly seemed to remember Sirius, who had shrunk into the background, and pulled him forward. “This is Sirius. Sirius, these are my parents, Hope and Lyall.”

To their credit, neither Hope nor Lyall blinked when they clocked Remus’ fingers intertwined with Sirius’. They simply pulled the boys into another life-crushing embrace and ushered them towards the counter, pushing cookies and chocolates and cakes in front of them. Hope chastised Remus for being too frail for her liking, and Lyall gently mentioned where Sirius could get a decent haircut in town.

Sirius and Remus spent the next few months living above the sweet shop, slowly building a life together. Without his riches or his mother to tell him what to do, freedom was a terrifying but welcomed addition to Sirius’ life. He could be anything – do anything – without fear of repercussion. Maybe he’d be a famous concert pianist, or a museum curator. For now, he settled on a boring, steady job down at the bank that paid enough to gather a bit of savings for a house of their own. His life had been chaotic enough for a while, so a little boring wasn’t such a bad thing. On weekends, they visited the local pub, and Sirius would strike up a tune on the piano, grinning as Remus danced madly around the swelling melody, and once the first rounds of whiskey were served, the band would take over, violins and drums and bagpipes vibrating the walls. Sirius and Remus became well known for their wild jigs, circling around the crowd in a giddy, drunken gaze, with all the zeal and sensuality of their very first dance in the steerage compartment so many moons ago.

Remus found a job at the elementary school a few streets over, and he’d spend his days teaching young kids how to draw more than just stick figures and smiley faces. It was rewarding, if but a bit tiring trying to keep up with a dozen six year olds all day, but it allowed him to sneak bits of charcoal and paper in his spare time and work on perfecting his drawings of Sirius. On a few occasions, they came so close to perfection, but something was still missing. Remus had finally accepted that Sirius’ vitality could simply not be captured on something as undeserving as paper, and that was okay; each night he went home to the real thing, and he would kiss him and hold him and love him, and for once, that was enough.

After a year or so, they had saved enough money to buy their own house on the outskirts of town. It was broken down and in need of serious repairs, but it was a place to call their own, where they would spend lazy Sunday mornings drinking tea with their ankles crossed beneath the table, where they would plant delicate lilies alongside the walkway in the spring, where they would raise a family when the time was right.

Sirius and Remus hadn’t meant to become fathers at such a young age. They figured they’d get married first, maybe even travel out west to see the mountains, but on a quiet morning in November, Remus read the last page of the newspaper and all their plans went out the window.

They had never been to an orphanage before. It was an hour outside of Gryffindor, and Sirius almost suggested that they turn off the highway and visit a new museum instead, but Remus insisted. There were at least a dozen kids inside the beaten down home, all in various stages of crying or screaming or melting down. All except one.

The newspaper had begged for couples looking to adopt, insisting the children were not broken, but instead just in need of love. There was John and Mary, William and Helen, and a small, tiny child with a name that caught Remus’ attention.

Harry laid in his crib, swaddled in a white blanket dotted with pale blue flowers, sleeping peacefully. He had a head of brilliant auburn hair, and when Sirius took him into his arms and his eyes peeled open, delicate green irises blinked up at him. Sirius had never planned on becoming a father – how could he, if he didn’t know what a father was in the first place? – but gazing into those viridescent eyes, listening to the soft coos in his arms, he knew this was his place. Sirius didn’t know how to be a father, but he knew how to love – Remus had taught him that – and he was going to love the hell out of this tiny human.

It was simple, really. Sirius and Remus took Harry home, set up his crib, and their family was complete.

They held onto that newspaper, stowing it carefully in a box in the attic. The invisible string that tied their family together.

Regulus kept his promise. When he was eighteen, he visited Gryffindor, settling down at the counter of the sweet shop and waiting for Sirius to come home for the day. Remus was the first to notice him, engulfing him in a hug and offering to cook something special for dinner. Sirius nearly screamed when he saw Regulus sitting there, all unassuming like he was just another customer. They talked for hours that night, and Sirius really did scream when he learned that Regulus had refused to take on the family business, instead opting to start his own legacy. Never in his wildest dreams did Sirius think Regulus would become a writer, but that’s exactly what he intended to study. He enrolled in a university in New York, a city he had since fallen in love with, and was already starting to work on his debut novel. Sirius forced him to sign a spare piece of paper lying in the kitchen so he could proudly own the first Regulus Black autograph. Instead, Regulus signed it by his new alias, R.A.B., a name that shed him of his horrid family and added a bit of mystique to his work, or so he thought.

Years later, Sirius was walking home from getting groceries when he passed a newsstand and nearly splattered his eggs all over the street. A painfully familiar face graced the front page of the newspaper. It was the kind of picture that allowed him to walk by the newsstand the first time, then double back when he was halfway down the block because _holy shit_ he’d recognized that face anywhere. Sirius handed the newsboy a dollar and stalked down the street without waiting for his change.

It was strange, seeing her smiling so wide; she had never worn such a grin when she stood beside him. Cordelia looked every bit a bride in her white dress, the fabric falling daintily to the ground amidst a layer of lace, a delicate veil draped over her shoulder and a crown of roses sewn into her hair to complete the look. Her arm was hooked on the tall man beside her, smiling down at his lovely wife with an aloof grin and teeth that weren’t quite straight. He didn’t recognize the man, but the article insisted he was some kind of real estate tycoon in the city. Cordelia had married rich after all, but she seemed genuinely in love, which was all she really wanted in the first place.

Sirius thought about writing to her, just to check up and give her his regards, but each time he sat down to write a letter, his pen never found the right words. It was then that he realized Cordelia was a figment of his past, their memories buried in the sand right next to Titanic, somewhere between the splintered remains of the grand piano and the waterlogged threads of his favorite painting. Just like the ship, Sirius let their relationship rest in peace.

Sirius and Remus visited the ocean only once after surviving that night. The water had lost its beauty, replaced with a vicious snarl and jaws just waiting to snap again. It had been a year since the sinking – the reporters and magazines refused to let them forget it – and so much had changed. Sirius had Remus. Remus had Sirius.

Sometimes at night, with their legs tangled and breaths falling gently on their cheeks, Sirius or Remus would jolt awake in a cold sweat, shoulders shivering and bones aching with the cold, as if they were still bobbing in that frigid ocean, waiting for death to steal them away. It would take a moment before they’d realize where they were, safe in each other’ arms, before their hearts would settle. There were times when Sirius would dream about his mother, her insistent claws and cold glares, but each time, Remus was there to protect him, whispering quietly into his ear, drying his tears, and humming him to sleep.

Sirius wasn’t afraid to sleep any more. Remus would save him. Remus would love him.

Looking out at the ocean, they silently thought about what they had lost. James. Lily. Their baby. Sirius’ family legacy. But god, look how much they had gained. Each other. Tender touches and quiet caresses. A life that was completely their own.

They stood on the shore, the waves lapping at their feet and the seagulls crying in the distance, hands clasped tightly together. Sirius let his head rest on Remus’ shoulder, and he sighed as Remus’ lips pressed against his hair.

They were survivors. Lovers. Kings of the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am beyond blown away by all the love that you have shown this fic. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I set out to write it - I figured maybe one or two people would like this AU, but now there’s a whole little community that’s making edits and sending me messages about how much you love the characters. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for embracing my story the way you did. I hope the ending was enough to stitch your broken hearts back together. I can’t tell you how much all your comments and messages have meant to me; I read each and every one, and I keep them in a folder on my computer to look back at. 
> 
> This was the first long-form fanfic I set out to write, and I can’t believe what a journey its been. I can’t wait to see this community continue to grow, and I wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else. I will never be able to truly express how thankful I am for all of you, but know that I’m sending you all giant, warm hugs. 
> 
> I need a little break from writing long fics to focus on some of my original projects, but I’m still going to be posting daily ficlets, so be sure to send me your requests on Tumblr whenever you fancy. Writing for you has been one of the brightest lights in this dark year. 
> 
> Stay safe, watch Titanic, and I love you from the bottom of my heart.   
> \-- Katerina


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